


When They Pick Through the Wreckage

by AngelSelene



Series: Wreckage [4]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV), Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, CM Divergent Season 9, Canon-Typical Violence, Ed joins the BAU, Edward Elric Keeps Alchemy, Edward Elric Keeps Automail, Established Relationship, F/M, Found Family, M/M, Maes Hughes Lives, Morgan doesn't leave, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Other Ships Not Mentioned in Tags, POV Outsider, Post FMA:B, Post-Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Stole the plothole and alchemy powers automail from CoS
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:15:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 56,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27130303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngelSelene/pseuds/AngelSelene
Summary: The BAU have learned about Roy and Ed's automail, but Ed is hiding other secrets, and his world is about to crash into theirs.“C’mon, pick the fuck up. I know you’re in class, but I wouldn’t fucking bother you if it wasn’t important. I know you’re mad, but fucking call me, okay? This is… It’s our stuff. We might have a way home. Even if you’re still pissed off at me or you don’t…” He stops and takes a deep breath. “Even if you don’t want there to be an us anymore… I think you’d still want to go home, if you can. I’ll text you the address. Just… call. Please?”Immediate sequel to Nothing Beautiful About the Wreckage. Updates on Tuesdays.
Relationships: Derek Morgan/Spencer Reid, Edward Elric/Roy Mustang
Series: Wreckage [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1924888
Comments: 2122
Kudos: 1777
Collections: Ashes' Library, Clever Crossovers & Fantastic Fusions, Shou's Hoard of Fics





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is an immediate sequel to Nothing Beautiful About the Wreckage. It can probably be read without it, but would certainly make more sense if you read Nothing Beautiful first.

The case today is only a four-hour drive and in a little town that doesn’t have an airport within an hour, so drive they do this time. JJ glances over at Ed, who is looking at his phone, frowning, _again_. She’s never seen him so attached to it before, but she knows that look. 

“Is Mustang still upset?” she asks. 

Ed starts and puts away the phone. “Yeah,” he says, sounding resigned. “I wish you hadn’t told him I ran into the fire—”

“But you _did—_ ”

“Not the point,” he snaps, then gives her a cold glare. JJ’s never been on the receiving end of that glare before. “I know you don’t like Roy. I know you don’t like that I’m with him, so don’t think I don’t know there’s a little part of you that’s pleased that we’re still…” He trails off, propping his elbow against the side of the car and leaning his head against his hand, staring out the window. 

Stung, JJ looks at Ed, _really_ looks at him before she says anything. He’s drawn, with bags under his eyes, so he hasn’t been sleeping well in the two days since they learned about his prosthetics. His hair in its usual braid, but something about it seems particularly tight. His shoulders are slumped in a way that she only saw when Mustang first stomped out. He looks defeated. 

“Are you still fighting?” she asks gently.

“You have to talk to each other to fight,” Ed says. 

The worst part is—Ed’s not wrong. Part of JJ, a not as tiny part as maybe it should be, is relieved by the prospect of Ed and Mustang breaking up. She hates what it’s obviously doing to Ed, and it’s somehow _wrong_ that _Mustang_ might be the one to leave, but all of her training says that the relationship can’t possibly be healthy. And that part of her? That part of her hopes that Mustang has packed up and left by the time Ed gets home. 

Seeing the toll that their strained relationship is taking on Ed makes her moral high ground feel hollow though. 

“We weren’t trying to hurt you,” she says.

“Road to hell and all that,” he replies, still cold, but with less bite than she expects. It’s almost worse for its resignation. As if he shouldn’t expect better than for them to do harm when they were trying to help. 

Emily puts the car in park—they’ve arrived at their destination. She turns around to look between the seats. “Hey,” she says. “We’re a team. If you don’t want to be here—”

Ed gets out of the car without letting her finish, slamming the door behind him with enough force to rock the SUV. That he managed to hide that prosthetic for so long is a little unnerving if JJ is honest. 

“What the hell is his problem?” Emily asks. 

JJ sighs. “Ed didn’t sign up for the BAU. Rossi recruited him, and he took some convincing from what I understand,” she explains. 

“There are tons of people who want to be on this team. If he’s not one of them, he should step aside.”

Part of JJ agrees with Emily, but JJ has also worked with Ed for nearly three years now, and she knows what an asset he’s been to the team. She doesn’t think Rossi was wrong to recruit him, but Ed’s reticence makes more sense in light of his recent revelations. 

Rather than continuing the fight, JJ says, “Let’s just focus on the case,” and gets out. 

.o0o.o0o.o0o.

This has been one of those cases where they really didn’t know what they were walking into. Some sort of mass killing and weird symbols and what was pretty much a “you’re close enough, please just come help, we’re in over our heads” message. Dave kind of hates those messages. They always lead to the strangest cases. 

“It’s… really weird,” the local deputy, Annabelle Crawford, tells them as she escorts them past the tape and into the barn. 

“We’ve probably seen weirder,” Morgan tells her. 

Dave gets a good look at the giant circle on the ground and seven people dead around the edge of it. “I don’t know, Morgan. This might be pretty high up the list,” he says. The barn reeks because these people have been dead for at least a few days. 

“Satanists?” Crawford asks. Got to love small-town police. 

“Unlikely,” Reid volunteers automatically. “The Satanist hysteria from the late eighties and early nineties was just that, hysteria. We don’t have any genuinely Satanic killings on record, mass or otherwise.” He walks around part of the circle as he speaks. “That said, this is obviously ritualistic in nature.”

“Considering…” Crawford motions in general. “We didn’t want to move the bodies before you got here.”

“What’s in the center?” Reid asks, moving to step into the circle.

“ _Don’t touch it!_ ” Ed’s voice cracks through the room, and they all turn to him in surprise. He’s dangerously pale staring at the circle in abject horror. His eyes find Crawford and he demands, “Has anyone touched the circle?” 

“No. Just the bodies,” she says, as unnerved by the wild panic in Ed’s eyes as Dave is sure the rest of them are. Dave has never seen Ed be unnerved or frightened by anything they’ve seen in his time in the BAU—to the point where Ed’s _lack of reaction_ has been commented on numerous times. This circle, gruesome as it is, shouldn’t evoke this kind of response. 

Unless Ed knows what it’s meant to do. Unless Ed _believes_ that it _can_ do something. 

Ed shoves his way past them, walking around the edge of the circle quickly, not touching the bodies or the circle itself, his eyes tracing every line of it. 

“You just touched the bodies?” he asks. 

“To confirm they were all dead,” Crawford answers.

Ed’s brow tightens as he frowns. Whatever those symbols in the circle are, they mean something to Ed. 

All of the sudden, his shoulders relax, and he sighs. “Fuck,” he says, kneeling down next to a body of a young woman. Even in death, the expression on her face is one of fear. Ed moves her hand and reaches over to close her eyes. “She was the last one to die,” he says softly, sadly. Beneath her hand, part of the circle has been erased, as if she had dug her fingers into the dirt floor and carved a hole out. “She broke it. Disrupted it. It’s safe to move in. Just—make sure no one completes it,” he says. “But to be extra sure, we should take a broom to the center and break it all the way through.”

“You don’t really think—” Reid starts, then cuts himself off. Dave doesn’t blame him, because what Ed’s saying, what he’s implying, they sound crazy. They make Ed sound crazy. 

“I think that someone thought this could be done with human lives to power it. I’d hate to prove him right,” Ed says. His eyes are fixed on the tray in the center of the circle. He looks… haunted.

“What’s he trying to do?” Morgan asks. “Get immortality? Does he think this will give him super powers or something?”

“We’re looking for someone who has lost a loved one. Maybe not recently.” Ed’s eyes trail around the circle again. “Not recently,” he decides. “Probably ten years ago? At least? A child or a family member. Probably a family member. A sibling or maybe a parent. They were lost tragically and unexpectedly, and the unsub never recovered from the loss. Anyone who knows them knows about their loss. They obsess over it. They talk about them constantly.” He goes quiet for a moment, then adds, “Or they did. When did the first person go missing?” Ed asks, looking at Crawford. 

“If Jackson was the first, he went missing four months ago,” she explains. “Went on a hunting trip, just never came back. It happens sometimes, around these parts. I don’t think any of the others were locals.”

Morgan whistles, because abducting seven people in four months? That’s a lot, especially in an area like this. 

“If you look back, about four months ago, he stopped talking about it. He became more of a recluse, but he’s never been social.”

“Wait, you think I know this monster?” Crawford asks. 

“He’s local. Locals know each other,” Ed says, standing. “Especially in rural areas. This is the kind of place you find because you live out here and are bored and have nothing better to do. You don’t find this place because you stumbled upon it while you were passing through.” 

Dave wants to watch Ed, but it’s more important to watch Crawford, and given the pensive look on her face, she knows someone who fits Ed’s description perfectly. “Let me ask around,” is all she says, and she steps out, brushing past JJ and Emily. 

They’re silent until the team are the only ones there. Ed stares at the circle, but Dave doesn’t think he’s seeing it. He’s holding his right arm as if it hurts, but it’s the prosthetic so it shouldn’t hurt. 

“What’s he trying to do with this?” Emily asks, sounding bewildered. 

“He’s trying to resurrect someone,” Ed says, voice tight. 

“And he needed _seven_ people to do that?” Dave asks. 

“No,” Ed says, and he clutches his arm even tighter, prosthetic hand tightly fisted. 

“No?” Morgan asks. “Then how many does he think he needs?”

Ed laughs, and it’s a humorless sound that makes the hair stand on the back of Dave’s neck. “A thousand wouldn’t be enough,” he says with absolute certainty. 

Dave exchanges glances with the other team members because Ed isn’t speaking hypothetically. He’s talking about this like he has indisputable, excruciating knowledge. 

“I can tell you this,” Ed says, grim. “He’s going to try again. He’s too desperate to let this setback stop him.”

With that, he turns on his heel and stomps out, dodging JJ’s attempt to reach out to him. 

They stand there in silence until Prentiss says, “Is anyone else more bothered by Elric’s reaction to all of this than the actual crime scene?” 

“He’s still keeping secrets,” Morgan says, looking at Dave.

“Yes, he is,” Dave agrees. “And I think it’s past time he stop.”

.o0o.o0o.o0o.

“C’mon, pick the _fuck_ up. I know you’re in class, but I wouldn’t fucking bother you if it wasn’t important. I know you’re mad, but fucking call me, okay? This is… It’s our stuff. We might have a way home. Even if you’re still pissed off at me or you don’t…” He stops and takes a deep breath. “Even if you don’t want there to be an _us_ anymore… I think you’d still want to go home, if you can. I’ll text you the address. Just… call. Please?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I said "Thursday" but today was *really* long and I legit just lost track of the fact it's only Wednesday. So... you get chapter 1 a day early. Enjoy!


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dave is the one who has to talk to Ed because Dave is the one who recruited him, made the exceptions for him.

Dave is the one who has to talk to Ed because Dave is the one who recruited him, made the exceptions for him. He stands by the decision because Ed has been an excellent addition to the team, but he’s been ignoring inconsistencies about Ed for nearly three years, and since he brought Ed in, he needs to be the one who confronts him. 

He finds Ed leaning against the side of one of the SUVs, staring at his phone like he wants to crush it in his fist. 

“Expecting a call?” Dave asks casually. Unless he’s calling Garcia ahead of them, everyone he should _need_ to get ahold of is already here. 

Ed puts the phone away. “I wish,” he says.

Dave leans against the SUV next to Ed, more in his space than he’d usually be, but he thinks that part of why Ed kept such a large personal bubble is just because he wanted to avoid people bumping his prosthetics. Since Dave knows, he should be okay. “You want to explain what all that was about?”

“No.”

At least he’s honest about that. 

“That profile you gave was very specific,” Dave says. “We have no idea how you got there.”

“I can’t, Rossi—”

Dave pushes off the SUV to look at Ed more directly. “You can’t withhold information from us like this. If you know something, you need to tell us.”

“I can’t.”

“Try us.”

“I _can’t_.”

“You mean you _won’t_ ,” Dave says, serious. He knows Ed is keeping secrets, but keeping secrets to protect himself at the expense of innocent lives is not something Dave imagined he’d do. 

“Even if I explained it, you wouldn’t believe me,” Ed says. He puts his left hand on his right arm and clutches it again. “Honestly, if he weren’t trying to fuel it with people, I’d be tempted to tell you to just let him do it. It’ll probably kill him anyway.”

Dave stares at Ed for a moment before he says, “You really believe that circle has power, don’t you?” It had been obvious inside, but he had hoped once Ed distanced himself from it, he might come to his senses. That is obviously not the case. 

Ed leans his head back against the SUV and stares up at the sky. “I don’t know,” he says. “I don’t know if what he’s made has any actual power or not.”

“But you believe it does.”

Eyes closing, voice soft and full of regret, Ed admits, “Yeah. I do.”

Dave frowns. “This isn’t a game, Edward. If you know something that can help us, you need to tell us!”

“I’ve already told you everything I know that can help you. I gave you your profile. I told you I think that circle _could_ have real power. What more do you want?” Ed asks, tired and defeated. 

“Lives are at stake!”

“You think I don’t know that?” Ed snarls, coming to life. “You want to know more? Fine. This guy? He frequents libraries, probably college ones. He needs the concentrated collections academic libraries house rather than the public ones. He’s young enough or at least looks young enough to pass as a student, but he’s not, so he can’t take things out. He’ll avoid asking for help because he doesn’t want to draw attention to what he’s researching, which means the librarians might know him on sight, but they won’t have a name for you. Because the closest major campus is well over an hour away, he’s mobile, so he has a vehicle. But we already assumed that because—look around.” He makes an expansive gesture to the woods surrounding them. “Do I need to go on providing useless pieces of the profile?” 

Dave sighs. It’s all good information to have, but Ed’s right—it doesn’t actually help them find this guy. 

“What can you tell us that is helpful?” 

Ed leans back against the SUV again and sighs, all the fury and energy drained, but he’s thinking. “He’s slightly above average intelligence, and his strengths will be math or science. The array—the circle itself, it’s easier than you’d think, but there’s still a lot of calculations and he wouldn’t have dared ask for help with them.” He pauses, staring up at the overcast sky before continuing, “He probably started with animals, so he’s probably an accomplished trapper. He was sure this would work before he was willing to sacrifice people to it.” 

“An accomplished trapper might help. Hunters are a dime a dozen in this area, but a trapper is a more specific skillset,” Dave points out.

“Crawford already knows who our unsub is. She just doesn’t want to tell us because she doesn’t want to believe it. He’s probably either her age and they went to school together, or she knew whoever he lost. She’s protecting him.”

“I know,” Dave agrees. 

Ed pushes off the SUV. “Then let’s go make her talk.”

Dave puts his hand on Ed’s shoulder to stop him, feels the metal under the clothing. It’s strange to know he’s allowed to touch Ed now, after nearly three years of Ed being unequivocally “hands-off.” “We can’t just badger her,” he says. And really, with the secrets Ed is keeping, Dave doesn’t know if he wants Ed talking to her at all. 

Then again, those same secrets probably make him the ideal person to do so. 

“Normally I’d say if you don’t think I can do the fucking job, then send me the fuck home,” Ed says, and there’s a hardness in his voice that Dave doesn’t know that he’s heard before. 

Dave waits for him to go on, but Ed falls silent, his hard, dark eyes meeting Dave’s. In those eyes, Dave sees what Ed won’t quite say— _This is mine_ , and _you are out of your league_ and _you need me on this one_. 

Ed knows what’s going on, and none of the rest of them have a clue. Neither do they have time to make Ed tell them. Dave isn’t wholly sure that they _can_ make Ed tell them anything. 

Morgan is coming up to them with a grim look on his face. “Garcia just called. A bus from a senior living center was hijacked about an hour ago. More than a dozen people were on board. GPS has been disabled.”

“It’s our guy,” Ed says, every bit as grim as Morgan. 

“The unsub thinks he’s resurrecting someone,” Morgan says. “In that case, wouldn’t he want younger victims?”

“I’d say let’s be grateful that he didn’t target a school bus,” Dave says. 

“There weren’t any kids,” Ed says like he just realized. He makes a beeline back to the barn, forcing Morgan and Dave to run behind him. When they get there, Ed is standing beside the victims. “There aren’t any kids. She’s the youngest,” he says, pointing at the young woman who gouged the circle. “And she’s got to be at least twenty-five. He can’t bring himself to target kids, or even young adults. He doesn’t care about race or gender or anything else, but he won’t sacrifice kids.” 

“It could just be opportunity,” Reid says. “Kids going missing is a lot higher risk because of things like the Amber Alert program.”

“No,” Ed says with certainty. “He could have taken kids. We’re close enough to DC or Philadelphia that he could have picked up runaways.”

“Might not have been that easy,” Morgan says. “Street kids are canny.” 

“I think Ed’s right,” JJ says. “The unsub didn’t hesitate to take healthy adults. He knew enough to target mostly people who weren’t immediately missed. He could have found kids who fell through the cracks. He chose not to.”

“Regardless, he’s going to have to either ditch the bus soon or he’s got somewhere to go,” Emily points out. “It’s not exactly an inconspicuous vehicle.” 

Ed’s eyes move around the circle, then he goes and grabs an old horse broom off the wall. Before anyone can say anything, he is sweeping away part of the circle, heading to the tray in the center as he does, ignoring cries of surprise. 

“We’ve got pictures already,” Ed says, sounding irritated as he erases a swath of the circle. “And I can recreate it if we don’t. “ He sets the broom aside and kneels down in front of the tray. 

Looks dart between the team, with Emily pointedly looking at Dave. He sighs and follows Ed into the circle as he lifts the tray. 

“What is all this?” Dave asks, staring at the mound of what looks like mostly mud.

“Water, carbon, ammonia, phosphorus, salt, saltpeter,” Ed rattles off. “Other traces.” He lifts the tray with his right hand, feeling the weight of it. 

“Those are basic compounds that make up a human body,” Reid says, sounding confused. 

“Yeah, and with at least forty pounds of carbon in here, I’d say that whoever they’re trying to bring back is an adult,” Ed confirms. 

“None of those things are hard to get or expensive,” Morgan says. Dave glances up and meets his eyes. Apparently they are going to ignore the fact that Ed knows the breakdown of a human being off the top of his head. At least for now. 

“A kid’s pocket money could probably get it all for you,” Ed agrees, sounding drained, like this is a conversation he’s had before. Then he adds with bitter amusement, “We’re made of such cheap materials.” 

Reid frowns. “We have all the stuff to make a body, but how does the unsub expect to resurrect the particular person they want?”

Ed uses the tray to shift materials around without touching them, looking at it intently. “A hair,” he says, as one is shifted to the top. 

Dave leans forward. “Short, dark. Could be the unsub’s or who he’s trying to raise.” He slides a glance over to Ed and asks, “What would you use?”

“It could be either,” Ed says, answering the first question. “And I don’t know how you get the person you want back. A hair from them or from you, if you’re related, isn’t an irrational choice though.”

There’s something Ed’s not telling them. Something very specific to this that he knows but won’t say. He knows this whole thing too intimately and this has shaken him too deeply. Dave has never seen Ed more than annoyed or pissed off about an unsub and what they’re doing. He’s never been afraid. 

Ed had been afraid when he first saw the circle. He had known _exactly_ what they were looking at. 

“What did you use, when you tried it?” Dave asks. He feels the others tense, not because they haven’t gotten there, haven’t reached the same conclusion, but because it’s hard to accuse Ed of an atrocity like this. 

The tension in the barn ratchets up when Ed doesn’t immediately answer. Just when Dave gets ready to push again, he finally says, “It doesn’t matter. It didn’t work,” staring into the tray like it holds the answers. “It won’t ever work. You can’t bring the dead back. He’s setting himself up for failure.”

“You _killed_ people—?” Reid blurts. 

“Don’t be an idiot,” Ed says, weary and far too old as he sets the tray down and stands. “I wouldn’t have tried if I had to kill someone to do it.” 

“You really tried this?” JJ asks. She looks as stunned as she sounds.

“I was a stupid kid,” Ed says, the self-loathing and contempt in his voice are thick enough to choke on. 

“What happened?” Emily asks. “When you tried it?” 

Dave hears the real question— _Why are you so afraid of it?_

“That’s how you lost your arm and leg,” Dave says before anyone else can get there, though Reid’s mouth is open. The memory of Ed standing in his kitchen, removing the hoodie to show an arm made of armor is still clear in Dave’s mind. 

_Because I was a fucking stupid kid messing around with things I shouldn’t have._

Ed is holding his arm again, but he doesn’t say anything.

“How could a _circle_ cost you an arm and a leg?” Reid asks. 

“What does this do, Elric?” Emily demands. That’s her boss voice. That’s the one that says she’s not taking shit anymore. 

“I can’t explain.”

“You _won’t_ ,” Emily snaps back as Dave gets a wave of deja vu. 

Ed doubles down. “I _can’t_.” 

Emily stares at him hard, but he doesn’t flinch from her. “Morgan, JJ,” she says after a long moment. “Why don’t you and Elric head back to the station with Deputy Crawford? We’ll finish up here and start canvassing the locals.”

It’s not a reprimand, but Dave can sense one coming. They can’t afford to appear divided among a small-town law enforcement group like this, though. Dave knows there _will_ be further discussions to come. 

Ed doesn’t argue, just following Morgan and JJ out. He may not argue, but he’s not subdued. He pauses before he leaves and says, “If you find another circle… don’t touch it. Don’t touch anyone in it. Not unless you can confirm it’s broken like this one.”

“Or what, it’ll cost us an arm?” Emily says, sarcastic and obviously frustrated with Ed’s unwillingness to explain. 

“If you’re very lucky, that’s all it will cost,” Ed says, sober, heavy with knowledge that was bought at a terrible price. He leaves them with those ominous words hanging in the air.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You have no idea how tempting it was to wait for chapter 1 to hit 1000 hits (which is, again, just so we're clear, _insane_. You do all remember this is a weird niche crossover, right? I didn't actually expect more than maybe a handful of people to read it. Peeps--nearly a _thousand_ hits on _Chapter One_.)
> 
> I have the absolute best readers ever. I hope I keep making you as happy as ya'll make me.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Who is he?” Ed demands. 
> 
> “Dead,” she snaps back, cold and clipped, clearly unwilling to discuss. 
> 
> “ _Who is he_?” Ed repeats, getting into her face. 

JJ isn’t surprised when Ed is quiet on the way to the station. They refrain from asking him anything further while in the car with Crawford. She’s already suspicious and uncooperative enough, no reason to make her think that there’s conflict on the team. 

Ed hisses and rubs his shoulder. 

“You okay?” JJ asks, concerned. 

“Just… gonna rain,” he says, brow furrowing. 

“It’s been overcast since we got here,” Derek says. “It’s not really a surprise.”

Jaw tense, Ed manages to grit out, “Sometimes it makes phantom pains act up.”

It’s JJ’s turn to frown. “I thought your prosthetics prevented phantom pains.”

He shakes his head. “Lessens them,” he elaborates. “They don’t happen as often or as severe, but I still get them.” 

Derek looks over his shoulder from where he is seated at the front, and meets JJ’s eyes.  _ He hid phantom pains from the team for three years. _ They’re together way too often, under too many changing circumstances and locations for it to have  _ never _ caused issues around them. Ed just… hid it so well they never noticed. 

Some profilers they are. Before his reveal of his arm, JJ forgot that Ed even  _ had _ a prosthetic leg most of the time. 

“Got a prosthetic?” Crawford asks. 

“Leg,” Ed says shortly. “Bum shoulder too,” he adds, to explain why he was rubbing it. 

“My pap was an old miner,” Crawford says. “Says he still misses the foot he lost.”

They manage to get into the station just before the rain starts coming down in sheets, but it’s obvious from the way he’s moving that Ed is in pain. 

“There’s not anything…” Derek trails off as Ed shakes his head. 

“Just gotta get through it,” he says. “Best thing is to keep busy.” He limps over to the board that the locals put up, which includes pictures of the victims, what’s known about them—which isn’t a lot. Penelope’s working on them back at Quantico, but even Penelope takes time to find information, especially since some of the faces had been targeted by wild animals. Only some of them though. 

The storm that had been threatening intensifies, the rain finally falling, and Derek and JJ both take turns trying to get Crawford to talk, though Ed ignores her. Whether he is in a bad mood because of his phantom pain or this whole case, or a combination of both, he’s more snappish and surly than usual, and Ed’s usual isn’t particularly friendly at the best of times. As a general rule, they don’t make Ed the point person for LEOs because his unique combination of arrogance and insubordination tends to make law-enforcement types twitchy. He’s much better with victims,  _ especially  _ children, so it’s not much of a liability under ordinary circumstances. He never seemed to take issue with first Hotch, now Emily’s authority, it’s just anyone else’s that gets his back up. 

Penelope has just finished giving them an update while the others are canvassing in the area. Ed had been listening, but he’s also roaming and fidgety—far more so than normal—when he freezes and pales. He reaches across a desk, picking up a small frame—a little 2x3 inch that wouldn’t fit anything larger than a wallet-sized photo, staring at it like he’s seen a ghost. 

“Crawford,” he says. There’s something in the way he says Crawford’s name that raises the hair on JJ’s arms, something that feels ominous and heavy and afraid. “Who is this?” He turns the photo, and Derek and JJ move closer to get a better look. 

It’s an older picture, predating the widespread digital use. It’s of a young man, no more than twenty. He has dark hair, short on the sides, slicked back on top, dark stubble shading his jaw, and rectangular, thin-framed glasses with dancing green eyes behind them. He’s rugged but not unattractive, with the kind of face that looks like it laughs a lot. 

In two big strides, Crawford steps forward and snatches the picture out of Ed’s hand. “That’s private,” she says. 

“Who is he?” Ed demands. 

“Dead,” she snaps back, cold and clipped, clearly unwilling to discuss. 

“ _ Who is he _ ?” Ed repeats, getting into her face. 

“I told you, he’s dead. What does it matter?”

Ed actually yanks on his braid in frustration, looking like he might just wring it off. “Because our unsub is trying to resurrect someone with dark hair like this. Because he’s trying to bring back someone who he loved, who he lost tragically. Who is this and how did he die? Was it about ten years ago? Did he have a sibling?” 

Crawford walks behind what must be her desk and sets the picture back in its place with care, but she doesn’t say anything. 

Derek glances her way, and they exchange looks. They don’t know why this man’s picture has unsettled Ed so much, why he zeroed in on it, but they can tell from Crawford’s reticence that Ed’s probably on the right trail. 

JJ steps forward. “Deputy, I know this is hard for you, but the person we’re looking for has already killed seven people that we know of and is going to kill more if we don’t stop him,” she says in her kindest, most reasonable voice. “We know he’s local because he knows the area too well to be transient, and in a population this small, you probably know him,” she says. Crawford slowly lifts her eyes to meet JJ’s. JJ reaches over to pick up the frame and put it back in Crawford’s hands. “Who was this?”

Breaking their eye contact, Crawford sinks into her seat with a shuddering sigh. “Hugh,” she says, staring at the tiny frame. “He was… he was my boyfriend. High school sweethearts. I know it’s trite, but, he was…” 

“Kind,” Ed offers. “Not ‘nice’ or anything stupid like that. He was kind—in the way that word is supposed to mean.”

Crawford looks up at him with surprise. “Yeah,” she says. “He was kind.” She looks back down at the picture. “Always happy, always ready to help out with anything. He was… the best. Everyone who ever met him loved him.”

“What happened?” JJ asks gently. 

Crawford takes a deep breath, sniffs a little, and sets the frame back into place with care. “He was murdered,” she says. “Hitchhikers. He picked up a couple, and they murdered him.” She attempts a laugh that sounds more like a sob, then adds, “Always trying to help.”

“Did they ever catch the people responsible?” Morgan asks.

“Yeah,” Crawford says with a snort. “Went over a guardrail only a mile or so from where they left Hugh to die on the road. Turns out they’d killed a few Good Samaritans like that.” 

“Did he have a younger sibling?” JJ asks as gently as she can. 

It takes a moment, but Crawford slowly nods. “Yeah,” she says. “Tucker.” Out of the corner of JJ’s eye, she sees Ed flinch as if slapped, but she can’t risk sparing him the attention. Crawford takes another deep breath before continuing. “Tucker Maes. He was Mr. and Mrs. Maes’ miracle baby. Mrs. Maes had a rough pregnancy with Hugh, and they didn’t think they could have any more, so Tucker’s about twelve years younger than Hugh was.” 

“How old was Hugh when he died?” Ed asks. When JJ flicks a glance over to him, he still looks unnervingly pale, but she can’t focus on it now. 

“Uh, he used ROTC to get through college. He was halfway through his four years and was home on leave. He was twenty-four.” Her eyes stayed fixed on the tiny picture. “He was always the one taking pictures, so we don’t got a lot of him. The formal military ones just didn’t seem right.”

“Where’s Tucker now?” Derek asks gently. 

Crawford finally looks back up. “Family home. The Mr. and Mrs. passed two years back. Mr. Maes from a heart attack. We say the Mrs. went from a broken heart, ‘cause she was gone a few months later. They weren’t young when Hugh was born. I think the Mrs. was almost fifty when Tucker was born.”

“Tucker,” Ed says, and something about the way he says the name sends up red flags in JJ. “How’d he feel about his brother?” 

“Adored him, of course,” Crawford says as if anything else is unthinkable. 

“Does Tucker have access to a barn?” Ed asks. 

Crawford stares at him. “Tucker wouldn’t do this,” she says, but even she doesn’t sound like she believes it.

“Deputy,” JJ says, intercepting her before she can get defensive. “We have over a dozen missing people, and seven already dead. Does it hurt to do a home visit to clear him?” Crawford’s attention swings back to JJ, and JJ presses. “Once he’s cleared, we can refocus.”

“Okay.” Crawford nods, standing back up. “Might as well get this over with.”

They head out the door, ducking into the police SUV as quickly as they can, and are on their way. Thunder rumbles, but none of them suggest waiting until the storm has passed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For my non-US readers, ROTC (pronounced R-O-T-C or “rot-see” depending on who you’re talking to, I know people who called it both) is a military program (Reserve Officers Training Corps) where the military pays for your some or all of your college while the student is also partaking in programs to be a military officer. After you graduate, you’re required to serve a minimum time in the military after graduation (from my friends who did ROTC). Hugh was halfway through his required 4 years post-graduation, which is why he was 24.
> 
> Also, to the Anonymous who asked on my Tumblr if we would see any doubles--now you know why you got the RAFO card. Nice guess! I hope the RAFO card wasn't too jarring.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “And you? Alchemist? What should I do with you?”

Ed’s head spins as they drive to the home of Tucker Maes. His heart is _sick_ with the thought of some alternate version of Maes Hughes and Shou Tucker ever being related. If Ed had to make a bet, he’d put money on Tucker killing his parents, but that’ll be a discussion for later. There’s no way this is not all related. 

Almost _nine years_ in this world, and the first sign of real, powerful alchemy comes with ghosts of dead men from Ed’s world. There is _no way_ this is a coincidence. He pulls out his phone and tries to send Roy a text, demanding he call Ed ASAP, but the text fails. 

“I can’t get ahold of Prentiss,” JJ says, hanging up her own phone. 

“I can’t get through to Rossi either,” Morgan says. 

Crawford shrugs. “It’s the mountains. Signals are usually spotty up here. Storms and bad weather make them particularly bad. It’s why most people still got landlines out here. They’re more reliable.”

The sky brightens as lightning flashes across it, followed almost immediately by a crash of thunder loud and immediate enough to make them all startle. 

_Why here? Why now?_ Ed wonders. He and Roy had, after much trial and error, uneasily hypothesized that the only way to make alchemy work in this world was to have it powered by human lives, human souls, the way a Philosopher’s Stone was. Neither of them were willing to kill someone to get home, and they certainly weren’t willing to kill someone just to see if it might be possible. But Ed’s automail worked in this world, so there had to be _some_ alchemy. That it was powered on his own soul made a twisted kind of sense. 

Roy had not been crazy about Ed continuing to use the automail once they had come to that conclusion, but for Ed, the tradeoff is worth it. Automail’s drawbacks aside, it is far superior to the prosthetics this world has. Ed calculated what the drain on his soul might be, and even at the upper range, it’s negligible—he’d done far worse healing himself in Amestris. Roy hates that answer, but he can respect Ed’s need to be self-sufficient. The prosthetic legs offered here aren’t _awful_ , but the phantom pains are far worse without the nerve stimulation the automail provides. There is no comparing his automail hand with the options available. 

It’s aching like a bitch in this storm though. 

Crawford turns down a long driveway, and the rain is pouring down so heavily that she has to be driving the route as much from memory as sight. Before the house or barn come into view, Ed feels the familiar prickle of powerful alchemy building in the air. This is _definitely_ the right place, and they are just barely in time. 

JJ must notice his attention sharpening because she asks, “What?”

“It’s here,” he says. “No matter what, stay away from a circle.”

She frowns at him, then trades looks with Morgan. 

Crawford puts the car in park outside a small farmhouse. About fifty yards behind the main house is a barn, only visible through the downpour because of its distinctive red color and the lights on in it. JJ and Morgan check their guns. 

“That’s the bus,” Ed points out as another flash of lightning throws enough light to see the white bus parked next to the barn. 

“All right,” Crawford says, getting out. Morgan follows her lead.

“Ed, can I see your gun for a minute?” JJ asks. 

The energy is gathering and Ed is distracted, so he hands it over, eyes focused on the barn. “We need to hurry,” he says. “Leave the array to me.” 

Crawford opens JJ’s door first, and before Ed can react, JJ’s out of the car. With his gun. 

“What the fuck!” Ed demands, banging on the window with his flesh fist. “What the fuck are you doing?” he demands. “Let me out!”

He can barely make out Morgan’s sorry expression through the rain sluicing down the car window, but it makes sense. They don’t want him near this, not with the secrets he’s keeping, not with a gun he can use to shoot his way out. Ed stares at their backs as they move toward the barn, his mind not quite believing what has just happened no matter how rational the decision. 

“ _Fuck!_ ” Ed turns to try to pull out the grating between the front and back seats of the car, but the holes are too small for him to get his automail fingers through. He punches it a few times, but though it warps, it doesn’t give. He shifts, giving it a kick with an automail foot, the sense of alchemy growing ever thicker in the air, but while he dislodges it, he’s going to tear himself to pieces trying to climb through those jagged edges. With a curse, he decides to stop fucking around, pulls the glove off his automail hand, and punches it through the window. He tries the handle from the outside, but Crawford had locked it. With another curse, he pulls his hand back, fragments of safety glass everywhere, then leans back on the seat. The space is so fucking confined, he just can’t fucking get the leverage he needs. He kicks at the remains of the window with the full force of his automail leg and pretty much knocks the whole window out of the frame. 

It’s enough. He puts his automail hand down so he doesn’t cut his hand, and climbs out, taking off at a run toward the barn. It probably only took him a minute, maybe _two_ , at the maximum, to follow them, but he’s seen the door to the barn opening, seen the light spilling out of it—the blue-hot light of an alchemical reaction—and there is _no time_. 

He bursts in, completely disregarding his safety. Tucker isn’t going to be shooting anyone—his hands will be beyond full with just trying to control the reaction. Sure enough, as he makes it inside, the reaction changes from lightning-blue to the unique ruby of soul alchemy. 

Ed barely has a moment to take in the victims who are scattered around the circle, to see that Morgan and JJ had both stupidly run forward to try and pull the victims away, to see a young man who is undoubtedly some other incarnation of Shou Tucker staring at him from across the circle. He claps his hands together, the motion still ingrained in him after all these years, and runs to the edge of the array, slamming his hands down outside the circle, even as a form is coming together in the tray. 

“It’s working!” he hears Tucker call in relief and joy. “It’s working!”

“Tucker! Step away from the circle!” Crawford, admirably, yells at him. 

Ed can’t listen. This circle—it’s _right_. It’s terrible and it’s a human transmutation array, and Ed _has_ to wrest control of it from Tucker before it kills all these people. 

“You can’t bring back the dead!” Ed snarls, trying to disrupt the transmutation, but it’s too far along, is too well crafted. 

The eye opens under the circle, and Tucker’s exultant expression turns to one of horror. 

There’s only one thing that feels like this. The world goes white, and Ed feels himself disintegrate, feels the pieces of himself be pulled apart one molecule at a time. 

Ed screams.

He doesn’t remember closing his eyes, but he isn’t surprised when he opens them, he finds himself standing in the doorway, one door on either side of him. JJ and Morgan are unconscious on the side, and Tucker is gaining his senses. 

Truth sits before him, Ed’s arm and leg the only solid features in its human-shaped outline, but he sees the shadow of its rictus grin. 

“Hello again, Alchemist,” Truth says in its terrible voice that sounds like a thousand people speaking at once. 

“Wha? Where? Where am I? Did I get my brother back?” Tucker asks, looking around, confused and desperate. 

Truth turns its attention to Tucker. “That was ambitious of you, young alchemist,” it says. 

“I did it!” Tucker says. “Alchemy is real! I did it right! Give me my brother back!” 

Truth hums as a human body forms in front of it. Whole and untwisted, Maes Hughes’s body hangs in the air, naked, but certainly Ed’s Hughes, not Tucker’s. He’s older than even Tucker’s Hugh would be, has the scars that Ed’s Hughes probably had. 

“My brother!” Tucker yells. “ _Hugh_!”

“This was clever,” Truth says. “Using the bones to get the right one back. I’m surprised you didn’t think of that, Alchemist,” it adds, shifting its attention to Ed again.

“I wouldn’t have robbed my mother’s grave,” Ed sneers, though looking at the body that Truth has built, he wonders if it would have made a difference. _No_ , he tells himself. _You can’t bring back the dead_. 

Well, _humans_ couldn’t bring back the dead. But could _Truth_? 

“Hugh,” Tucker says, crying. He may have Tucker’s face, but Ed never saw such raw emotion on Shou Tucker. “Give me my brother.”

Truth turns its attention back to Tucker. “There is a toll that must be paid,” it says. 

“Toll?” 

Ed opens his mouth to protest because no matter what this Tucker has done, he wouldn’t wish Truth’s tolls on _anyone_ , but he’s too late. The door opens, and Tucker is pulled screaming into it by black hands and faceless eyes. 

“No!” Ed races to him, arm outstretched, but he only collides with the door as it slams on Tucker. 

“So much arrogance,” Truth says, and Ed doesn’t know if it’s talking about him or Tucker.

“Give him back!” Ed demands, banging on the door. 

“At what price?” Truth asks, and somehow Ed knows it is looking at JJ and Morgan. 

“No,” Ed says, faintly at first, then more firmly. “ _No_. You can’t have them.”

“Can’t I? They were in the array.”

“They weren’t part of it,” Ed insists. “And you know it.”

“Maybe,” Truth concedes. Its head tilts as if looking curiously at Ed, although it has no face or features except for that vague impression of a mouth. “You continue to break the rules though. First you sacrifice your Gate, then you come back through, reopening it. I put you in a world where barely any alchemy exists, and yet you still find your way here to me.”

“Let them go,” Ed says. “They have nothing to do with this.”

“They _didn’t_ have anything to do with this,” Truth corrects. “Now they’re here. Now they are pieces on the board, Alchemist.”

“They’re _people_ ,” Ed snaps. “Good people who have dedicated their lives to helping people—”

“Hunting people,” Truth says. “They are predators, Alchemist.”

Ed isn’t arguing semantics with Truth. It will twist his words and meaning however it wishes. “Let them go. Send them back.”

Truth is silent for a time in this place where there is no time, no meaning, before it answers. “Twelve lives, however old, is quite the toll. Surely that’s equivalent to something.”

Fists clenched, Ed grinds out, “I’m not making any deals with you. Send them back.” He hasn’t let himself think about it yet, but he’d been pretty sure just the fact of being here meant that Tucker had successfully completed his exchange. It doesn’t make it any easier to hear the confirmation. He ignores Hughes’s body. Hughes is dead, has been dead for a decade. He’s beyond Ed’s help. 

“And you? Alchemist? What should I do with you?”

There is no good way to answer that question. If he insists on being given the same fate as JJ and Morgan, Truth might use it as an excuse to kill or maim them. 

He decides to go on the offensive. “Do you really want to go toe-to-toe with me again? Isn’t that why you accepted my alchemy for Al in the first place? To make sure I could never come back?” 

He gets the impression that Truth is frowning. 

“I didn’t make this array. I didn’t help this guy. He figured this out all on his own in a world where barely any alchemy exists,” Ed points out. “How did he do that if he didn’t have help from someone? Someone who has touched you? Have you sent anyone else from Amestris through to his world?” Truth is quiet for long enough that Ed feels like he’s on the right track. There _had_ to have been someone who knew something. Someone else torn between worlds. Ed had tracked down damn near every old alchemic text he could find, and it all amounted to almost nothing. He should have seen that there had to be another person somewhere. Maybe a homunculus? 

Truth sighs. Since Ed is sure it doesn’t need to breathe, it must be an affectation. “Regardless, that big of a sacrifice must be used for something,” it says. 

Ed’s heart sinks as the Hughes-shaped doll suddenly comes to life, chest expanding, shoulders rising and falling with breaths. Familiar green eyes open and blink, then squint as a familiar voice asks, “Edward?”

“What are you—?” Ed gasps out, not sure if it’s in horror or shock. 

“You and the Flame have been having problems, haven’t you. I’m sure he’ll like this one better in your place,” Truth says. “And I suppose I can take the tolls from the one who committed the taboo.”

Eyes, ears, and defined mouth appear on Truth’s face—Tucker’s—followed by his left arm and right leg. Ed doesn’t know if the scream he thinks he hears behind the door is real or only in his mind. 

Both doors open—black arms and faceless eyes reaching out. Ed freezes, incapable of deciding to protect Hughes or JJ and Morgan. In the end, it doesn’t matter. The hands from the same door that pulled Tucker through grab Hughes, while hands from the other door grab Ed, JJ, and Morgan. 

“ _No!_ ” Ed yells, struggling against the arms, even knowing it’s futile.

“Goodbye, Alchemist,” Truth says, waving Ed’s arm at him as the door slams shut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is it just me or does it seem like it's been a _lot_ longer than just a week? Hopefully it worth the wait. XD


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Tucker? Agent Morgan? Agent Jareau?” she calls. She can’t hear anything over the sound of the rain on the roof of the barn, but that doesn’t mean no one is here. 

It’s pitch black when the light dies away, and Annabelle fumbles for her flashlight. “Tucker? Agent Morgan? Agent Jareau?” she calls. She can’t hear anything over the sound of the rain on the roof of the barn, but that doesn’t mean no one is here. 

Her flashlight finds sets of clothing around the circle, but no bodies. A chill runs through her. There were people in those places before the light had blinded her. Now there’s just empty clothing. She shines the beam around the edge, and it’s just… more empty clothing, until it lands on the tray in the center of the circle.

The tray no longer contains a mound of fancy dirt, but skin, someone pale and solid. She moves the beam up to the man’s face, and before he flinches away from the light, she sees a face that was once as precious as her own to her. “Hugh?” she asks, feeling like she must be in some kind of nightmare. 

“Hughes,” the figure corrects. “Lieutenant Colonel Maes Hughes.” His voice is achingly familiar, but something about the way he says the name is wrong—and Hugh never lived long enough to be a lieutenant colonel. 

“It’s Annabelle,” she calls, slowly moving forward. She remembers what Agent Elric says about the circle, and it makes her hesitant to step into it, especially after seeing that…  _ eye _ ? It couldn’t have been.

There’s a groan and a scraping sound in the dark, and Annabelle shifts the light to find the source. 

She almost shoots it on instinct before she recognizes Tucker’s face behind the bloody holes where his eyes were. His ears are also missing, his mouth bleeding. He coughs up blood, swinging his head back and forth desperately. He raises his left arm, which is only a bleeding stump, and she almost drops her gun and flashlight in her shock. 

“ _ Tucker! _ ” Mindless of the circle, she runs straight across it, running to Tucker. He’s bleeding so much. It’s not just the stump of his arm that’s bleeding, but she sees that his leg is bleeding too. His whole right leg from the middle of the thigh is just  _ gone _ , and it’s gushing blood. She yanks off her jacket, trying to use it to stem the bleeding, but Tucker flails and tries to fight her off. He makes pathetic sounds, and she can see that his  _ tongue _ is missing from his mouth. She has to fight down her gorge, but she has to help him, or he’s going to bleed out and they’re never going to get any answers. 

She startles as Hugh settles next to her, and she swings the flashlight to stare at him. No, he’s not quite her Hugh, He’s too old, for one, at least thirty? Her Hugh was never that old. There’s something older and harder in his eyes than was ever in her Hugh’s eyes. 

“I’ll hold him down. I don’t think he can hear or see you, so he’s panicking,” not-Hugh says, apparently not unnerved by the blood or the violence. “If he keeps thrashing, he’s going to bleed out.”

She’s just a small-town deputy, so she’s really not trained for something like  _ this _ , but the not-Hugh’s calm helps center her, just the way her Hugh always did. He manages to pin down Tucker’s shoulders, and she has to sit on his stomach to keep from getting kicked. She manages to yank off her belt and make a tourniquet on his thigh, which is obviously the most dangerous wound. She hasn’t even had a chance to call for backup, she realizes distantly. She’s not even sure the short-range radios will work in this storm. They don’t always, and her hands are full with trying to save Tucker’s life. 

When Tucker finally goes limp under them, it’s not because he’s stopped fighting, but because he’s lost consciousness. It makes it easier to try to stem the bleeding, but there is  _ so much blood _ . She forces herself not to think about it. She can’t think about it. She has to think about saving Tucker. 

As soon as they’ve done all they can, Annabelle reaches for her radio. She tries to call out but gets only static. 

“How close is the nearest hospital?” not-Hugh asks. 

“Twenty-five minutes in normal weather,” she says, ignoring the fact that her Hugh would know that. “We’ve got a clinic that’s only fifteen, but in this downpour…”

“We’re better off taking him to it than waiting for them to come to him,” not-Hugh points out. 

“Yeah,” she says, nodding, feeling floaty and disconnected. “I’ll… I’ll get the car.”

Not-Hugh looks at her in alarm. “I don’t think you should be driving,” he says.

“Do you know how to get there?” she asks, and she means to snap, but it just comes out empty. 

“No, but you can give directions. We don’t have much time if we’re hoping to save him, but driving us into a tree doesn’t help any of us.”

“Right,” she says. “I’ll… I’ll drive the car over here. It’s too far to carry him in this downpour.”

He nods at her, though keen eyes have been taking in everything that can be seen in the limited light of the flashlight. He’s wary, but not panicked or confused. Annabelle wants to panic, and she’s distantly sure that as soon as her mind clears, she’ll be very confused, but she gets up on shaky feet and tries to rush back to the SUV. 

Her rushing isn’t great, between the slippery mess the rain is turning the yard into, her own shock, and just the difficulty of seeing in the downpour. When she gets to the car, she’s stunned to see a whole window kicked out, then remembers that they’d locked Agent Elric in the car, but it hadn’t slowed him down much. He must have had something to break the glass, but it means that water has been pouring into the back seat of the car, which is far from ideal considering they want to use it to take Tucker to the hospital. Still, it’s probably better than waiting in the barn. 

Circling the car, she unlocks and opens the driver’s side door, and it takes her several long moments to understand what she’s seeing when she does. 

The mesh separating the front and back seats is warped, like a bowling ball had struck it. Sharp edges where it had come free are sticking out at dangerous angles into the driver’s seat area, but the hole between the mesh and where it broke free isn’t big enough to have let anyone out without costing them a lot of skin, even if they were small. 

It’s also going to make it impossible to drive the car. 

She reaches in and tries to force the mesh back away from the driver’s side, but it doesn’t give, and her wet hands actually slip on it and cut her. There’s no way she can bend it back into place. Unwilling to give up, she goes back around and gets in the passenger seat. Her shoulder radio may not be strong enough, but maybe the one in the car is. She reaches over the console to start the car, and it blessedly still comes to life. When she enters the call for help, it actually goes through. Dispatch, naturally, wants her to stay in the car and on the line, but she knows she needs to get back to Tucker and not-Hugh. 

Annabelle gives as much information as she can while holding back as much as she dares, because if she starts saying things about a circle emitting blue lightning that turned red and then vanished  _ fifteen people _ , then somehow brought back this weird facsimile of her dead boyfriend, she’s going to sound hysterical. 

She feels like she should be hysterical. A tiny place in her mind says  _ you’re in shock _ , and that’s okay, right now, she thinks. She can always be hysterical later. 

The slog back to the barn is still slow-going, and the muddy field tries to suck her feet down. She finally makes it back inside, and calls out, “Hugh?” because that’s the name she knows, and she somehow can’t not. 

“Hughes,” he corrects. Her flashlight finds him, and he’s covered in blood, like she’s sure she is, other than what the rain has washed off. He’s pulled on some of the random clothing on the floor, so he’s not naked anymore, but it doesn’t really fit, and is the clothing of an old man anyway. Her training says he shouldn’t have touched anything, but she’s oddly relieved that he’s not naked anymore. Besides, Tucker’s blood is probably going to contaminate the whole damn crime scene. What difference does it make?

“How is he?” she asks, moving toward them. This time, more aware, she avoids walking through the circle. It’s probably safe, given she ran through it before, but it makes her skin crawl, and she doesn’t want to touch it if she can avoid it. 

Not-Hugh,  _ Hughes _ shakes his head. “Not good. I didn’t hear a car. Are you pulling up?”

“I called for backup. Agent Elric must have been pretty desperate to get out of the car. The wire mesh is all bent out of shape. The car can’t safely be driven.”

He snaps to attention at the name. “Agent Elric?” he asks. “Edward Elric?”

“I believe so,” she says. “Why?”

His mouth works for a minute before he looks around and says, “Is there an Alphonse?”

“No,” she says, very certain of that. “It was Agents Elric, Morgan, Jareau… I’m forgetting the others. I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” he says. “Is there an Agent Mustang?”

She shakes her head. “No,” she says. She’d have remembered a name like Mustang. She wonders at the questions, though her head is still fuzzy. 

“Do you think there’s a breaker in here?” he asks, changing the topic. 

Annabelle feels  _ stupid _ . She knows there’s a breaker in here. She even knows where it  _ is _ since she was around the summer Hugh installed it. 

Wearily, she gets back to her feet and goes to find it. 

By the time she finds the breaker and gets the lights back on, she rather wishes she hadn’t. The horror of the scene is somehow much worse when seen in plain light. There is  _ so much blood _ . She had known that, but it’s worse in the yellow light of the barn. It’s also worse seeing all the damage Tucker has taken as a whole instead of just wherever her flashlight could linger on. He barely looks human. 

She realizes his chest isn’t moving. Panicked, she runs back to where he’s lying on the ground, and she feels for his pulse. There’s nothing. She puts her ear to his chest and listens—the only sound is sounds are the rain on the roof and thunder in the distance. She starts chest compressions because her training says she should, but it’s too late. 

By the time the ambulance arrives, Tucker is gone. 

There is no sign of the twelve abducted senior citizens or three FBI agents. 

.o0o.o0o.o0o.

It’s still pouring outside, and the inside of the barn is a mess. 

Prentiss sighs heavily as she steps up next to where Dave is staring at the mess that’s all that’s left of Tucker Maes. Despite the horrible wounds, the blood-soaked dirt floor tells the unsub’s official cause of death. 

“Anyone find anything to indicate what caused our unsub’s wounds?” Dave asks, but he’s pretty sure he knows the answer.

“Nothing,” Prentiss confirms, not bothering to hide her frustration with him. “There are tools in the barn that could have been used to sever limbs, but nothing as cleanly as these appear to have been. And there’s no sign of bleeding anywhere else. I think all the blood trails we can trace back to Hugh Maes, or Maes Hughes, or whoever he is.”

“And no sign of—?” 

“ _ None _ ,” she says, crossing her arms, then fidgets and wipes some of the rain dripping from her hair off her neck. “And the scene is completely compromised between Crawford and Maes.”

“Has Reid gotten any more clarity out of Deputy Crawford on what happened?”

He’s pretty sure he can hear her teeth grinding when she says, “No.”

Dave moves his eyes from the ruin of what’s left of Tucker to the circle on the floor. There’s a tray in the center of it, just as there was at the first location, but this one is empty, and their mysterious Mr. Maes is wearing clothing that must have belonged to one of the victims, judging by the missing set of clothing from the floor. 

“Where could they have  _ gone _ ?” Prentiss asks, and there’s something almost helpless in her voice that Dave hasn’t heard in a very long time. 

“This circle,” he says, tapping his foot around the edge but not touching it. “Is it the same as the one we saw at the last location?” 

Prentiss sighs, refocusing. “It looks like it to me, but we’d need Reid to confirm.”

“Ed was afraid of the circle at the last location. He admitted that he thought it had real power. He told me that if the unsub weren’t trying to fuel it with human lives, that he would say to let him do it. He thought it would kill the unsub.”

He’s mostly thinking aloud, but he can feel Prentiss’s incredulous stare. “You can’t be serious.”

“Emily,” Dave turns to her, using her name to get her attention, “I have never seen Ed like he was at the last location. I think we have to consider that we’re dealing with something we don’t understand here. All of our victims are missing, nothing left but their clothing. And no sign at all of Ed, JJ, or Morgan. Our unsub has been maimed, but there’s no sign of the weapons that dealt the wounds.”

“There  _ has  _ to be a logical explanation for it,” she insists. 

Dave’s eyes move back to the remains of Tucker Maes. “Ed knew what this was. Whatever he knew, he was terrified of it, and absolutely certain that he couldn’t tell us,” he says rationally. “If we can’t find Ed, i can only think of one other person who might know what this is.”

It only takes a heartbeat before Prentiss’s expression becomes disbelieving. “You want to bring  _ Mustang _ in?” she more states than asks. 

“Do you have any better ideas?” he asks. 

Her mouth opens, closes, opens again, closes again, then she sighs and shakes her head. “You have his number?”

“I do.”

“Call him. We’ve got fifteen missing people, three of them our own. I want answers. If he’s the only lead we have, then he’s the lead we’ve got,” she says, but it’s clear she’s not happy about it. 

Dave isn’t happy about it either, but he doesn’t have any better ideas. He pulls out his phone, fortunately, he has a bar, so he doesn’t waste time. He has calls to make.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully this one is a little less cliffhangery? 
> 
> Also, I'd like to do a Wreckage 'verse short for RoyEd week in December, but I'm drawing a total blank, so feel free to throw me some ideas of scenes you'd like to see (that _please_ do not lead to a whole extra fic), or feel free to drop them in my [Tumblr Asks](https://angelselene.tumblr.com/ask) if you'd like to drop it anonymously.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roy cuts him off. “Where is my partner, Agent Rossi?” 

Roy sighs as he settles into his desk. The day had just been very, very long. It had started off shitty with lingering silence between him and Ed, and gone from bad to worse from there. 

Two teachers are out. Cheyanne had come down with strep throat and is going to be out for at least a week, leaving Roy to have to help cover her grading in addition to his own while she’s out, then Luisa’s husband broke his hip, so she is going to have to take a short leave until she can get her brother-in-law to come and stay with them, which means Roy will have to cover the Science Club until she comes back. Janelle, his star chemistry student, lost her father to a heart attack over the weekend and will be out, and even when she comes back, he has no idea how she’d be affected. 

He’d forgotten to charge his phone last night because his charger wasn’t in the guest room with him—where he had slept, alone, without Ed—so his phone died while he was trying to order flowers to Janelle’s mother as a condolence—Janelle is an only child, and both of her parents have been very involved and very supportive of their daughter’s scholastics. He’d plugged his phone in at work, only to have Griffin James—who was lucky he was astonishingly good-looking because he certainly had nothing else to offer, Roy rather thought he’d make very smart lady a nice trophy husband someday—klutz around and spill his coffee on the cord and short it out. He was lucky it didn’t kill Roy’s phone, but it did mean that his phone was dead. 

He meant to bum a charger off Mercedes—who had five kids and collected spare chargers like they were flint in the wilderness—but a couple of freshman girls had gotten into a hell of a catfight in the middle of lunch and had required Roy and Annette, the women’s PE teacher, to pull them apart. They’d still been trying to get at each other as they were unceremoniously frogmarched to the principal’s office when the _fire alarm_ went off. 

It was a couple of jocks smoking weed in the bathroom who set it off. Roy couldn’t decide what was more infuriating, the massive chaos and confusion caused by the unexpected alarm—while trying to keep kids responsible from sneaking off as they waited for the fire department to clear the building—or the sheer unoriginality of the idiots who had set it off. _Smoking_ . _In the bathroom_. 

_Really?_

He didn’t know either of the boys, but that was hardly surprising. Roy wouldn’t have tolerated that level of stupidity in his classes. 

And, because _someone_ must have been stupid enough to challenge the power of worse, the coffee maker in the teacher’s lounge broke. The universe’s final _fuck you_ to end a shitstorm of a day. 

Which means that by the time Roy finally manages to steal a spare charger off Mercedes—only _after_ the abbreviated Science Club meeting—and get his phone charged enough to even turn on, much less do anything else, Roy is extremely cranky and undercaffeinated and seriously reconsidering his current career. Surely it isn’t too late for him to take over a military dictatorship? There are days Roy is convinced it would be easier than trying to wrangle teenagers. 

He misses Ed with a pain that is almost physical, and his wrist has itched all day. Finding out that Ed had done something as reckless as running into a _fire_ still hurts, but, really, the worst part is… he’s not surprised. Not really. Ed has never told him _everything_ he gets up to while out on assignments, shrugging aside fights and injuries and dangers that would have left less hardy people catatonic, left out details that Roy only learned in Amestris because of his own network of informants. He isn’t really surprised that those tendencies haven’t changed, regardless of Ed’s access to alchemy. Maybe the problem is that he’s not surprised. Disappointed, yes, but not surprised. 

Nearly nine years in this world that doesn’t have alchemy, and Roy still has to remind himself that _this world doesn’t have alchemy_. That makes it both safer and more dangerous for Ed. Safer, because Ed isn’t dealing with people who are messing with the very fabric of reality at times—like the asshole alchemist who got them dropped in this world to begin with—but neither does Ed have the near-miraculous skill with alchemy to protect himself. His automail is more fragile because if it breaks, _really breaks_ , there’s no one who can repair it here. No one who can replace it. _Ed_ is the most knowledgeable person about it, and he had to reverse engineer a lot of his knowledge painfully. 

It terrifies Roy, sometimes, knowing that Ed is out there chasing the sickest and most crazed of humanity. At the same time, Roy has a terrible faith in Ed’s abilities, in his brilliance and resourcefulness and his sheer pigheaded stubbornness. Edward Elric literally beat a god to death. It’s hard to imagine anyone merely human being a serious threat. 

And yet… Ed has always been a magnet for danger. But he’s also always fought back, overcoming and overwhelming the danger, annihilating it. Being deprived of his alchemy has not changed that. 

Perhaps the one Roy’s really mad at, is really punishing, is himself. He knew from the moment that he kissed Ed that if there could ever be an _us_ , it wouldn’t be a quiet life. Edward is a pulsar, spinning erratically, a source of tremendous power and unpredictability. Even if Roy hadn’t had his own ambitions and goals to pursue, goals that would likely make him more enemies than friends, life with Ed was always going to be an adventure. The siren song of the university managed to keep Ed mostly tethered in place for four years, but Roy had seen the agitation, the wanderlust, the need to be moving. It had caged Ed, but only temporarily. 

The BAU with their unpredictable but near-constant travel seemed custom made to ease Ed’s restlessness. It’s high-stress and challenging and even dangerous, so basically everything Ed thrives off of, though he’ll be damned before he admits it. They’ve never, in almost a decade together, ever really talked about why Ed didn’t leave the military after the Promised Day. Why he stayed, even though he still spoke horribly of it, still barely minded orders. Why he accepted the promotion and even his own team. Roy thinks he knows though. 

Edward Elric is not a man designed to sit on the sidelines. He is a catalyst—a person who ignites a reaction, who makes things _change_. The military gave him far more room to be that initiator than any civilian career could. 

If Roy is entirely honest with himself, he also thinks Ed stayed for him. To be with him, support him, give Roy another pawn on the board, not realizing he’s not a pawn but a _queen_. Versatile, sneaky, _powerful_. In Amestris, Roy had been too grateful to ask. In the United States, there seemed no point. 

Perhaps he is owed that answer by now. 

He could just head home, but he wants to get at least some of Cheyenne’s grading done, and he won’t with that stressed silence distracting him at home. Besides, Ed accidentally broke off his phone charger in the car’s port three weeks ago, and Roy hasn’t had a chance to get it fixed yet. His phone vibrating as it turns back on startles him. Amazing that he once would have found it difficult to imagine a telephone that was so portable, much less any of the amazing things it can do. Now he feels entirely out of joint when it dies. 

He has two missed texts from Ed and a missed call with voicemail. 

Roy swipes to the text first that he would have gotten not long after getting to school had his phone been charged. It’s the typically short _OOT. PA._ message that Ed usually shoots off when he’s called into the field. _Out of town_ , and the state he’ll be in, mostly so Roy knows what time zone to account for. The second text is a Pennsylvania address. He goes to the voicemail and hits play. 

“C’mon, pick the _fuck_ up,” the message begins. There’s a stress, a tension in Ed's voice that Roy hasn’t heard in _years_ , and his stomach drops _._ “I know you’re in class, but I wouldn’t fucking bother you if it wasn’t important. I know you’re mad, but fucking call me, okay? This is… It’s our stuff. We might have a way home. Even if you’re still pissed off at me or you don’t…” Ed pauses, and Roy can hear his deep inhale. “Even if you don’t want there to be an _us_ anymore… I think you’d still want to go home, if you can. I’ll text you the address. Just… call. Please?”

The voicemail ends, and Roy feels cold in his bones. 

Ed left that voicemail around lunchtime. It’s after four, coming up on five, and there are no other messages. He quickly navigates to Ed’s contact and calls. 

“ _The number you have called—_ ” Roy hangs up, tries again, and gets the same message. 

Normally, that wouldn’t leave an aching hollowness in Roy’s stomach. Ed ends up in a lot of weird places, and it’s not _that_ unusual for him to be out of range. Except never before had Ed left a message like that. 

_This is… it’s our stuff_. 

Alchemy. It’s _alchemy_. Alchemy which even _Ed_ hadn’t managed to make work in this world. 

Feeling the beginnings of real panic starting to claw at the back of his throat, Roy navigates to Rossi’s number and calls it. 

“Mr. Mustang?” Rossi answers, surprised, but, well, the reason Roy has Rossi’s number is because Rossi has called him before. 

“Where’s Ed?” Roy asks, by some miracle managing not to demand or yell or sound desperate. It’s only by the slimmest margins. 

Rossi doesn’t immediately answer, which is only stringing Roy’s nerves tighter. “Mr. Mustang, I’ve been trying to get a call out, but service has been erratic up here—”

Roy cuts him off. “Where is my partner, Agent Rossi?” 

There’s a noticeable hesitation again before Rossi says, “Mr. Mustang, we need you to come to Pennsylvania.”

 _PA_. That’s where Ed is. Was. 

The itching on Roy’s wrist doesn’t feel like a normal itch anymore, not the vague kind of irritation he sometimes notices when Ed’s been gone particularly long or he’s gone particularly far. This is something else, this is— _power_. Alchemical power. He shifts the phone to his shoulder as he begins gathering up his work, shoving it into his bag far more carelessly than he should. 

“Give me the address,” Roy says. If he has to, he’ll catch an Uber to Ed’s office and take his car. 

“I’ve already got an agent coming to meet you,” Rossi says. 

Roy stills. “I’m still at the school.”

“I figured. She’s en route.” 

“Agent Rossi,” Roy begins, fear creeping up on him. He forces it down with anger. “What has happened to my partner?”

“Her name is Special Agent Ashley Seaver.”

There’s a knock on his doorframe. He looks up, hand reflexively trying to snap, even though it’s been nothing more than a sound for nearly a decade. A slim blonde woman stands in the doorway. 

“Mr. Mustang?” she asks. “Special Agent Ashley Seaver.” She pulls out her badge for him. 

“I expect answers when I get there, Agent Rossi,” he says into the phone, and he doesn’t pretend it’s anything other than the command it is. 

“We have some questions for you as well, Mr. Mustang.”

The line goes dead. Roy unplugs the charger, closes his laptop, and shoves it into his bag. He takes the charger with him, promising to give it back later. 

… if there is a later. 

_It’s our stuff_. 

He takes a look around his desk for a long moment, tries to think if there’s anything at it he might possibly need or want. He thinks about their home, what’s there, if he needs anything, but the most important things, like his gloves and the few important pictures, are already kept in his bag. He and Ed had built a life here, but this isn’t home. 

“Agent Seaver.” Roy inclines his head. “Roy Mustang.” He almost adds his title but manages not to. For the first time in years, it feels strange not to preface his introduction with his military title. A sign of things to come, perhaps?

“If you’ll follow me?” It’s phrased as a question, but it’s not one. 

Roy manages not to scratch at the array on his wrist as he follows the agent out the door. 

.o0o.o0o.o0o.

Dave sighs and closes his phone. Prentiss and Reid are staring at him, their own anxiety all but radiating from them. They’ve had team members go missing before, but never _three_ of them at once. Never when the only lead they had was the brutally dismembered corpse of their unsub, a traumatized local LEO, and a man who had apparently come back from the dead. 

“They’re on their way,” Dave confirms. A tiny bit of tension eases from their shoulders, but not a lot, not enough. Mustang has some part in this, just as Ed does, but knowing that isn’t exactly a relief. 

He can feel eyes on them. Deputy Annabelle Crawford is at the hospital, being treated for shock, and no small wonder, considering what had become of the man she once thought would be her brother-in-law. Hugh Maes had been checked out by a thoroughly unnerved local EMT and given the all-clear, so he’s at the station with the BAU. All of the locals are giving him a seriously wide berth. 

No, not Hugh Maes. He says his name is _Maes Hughes. Lieutenant Colonel_ Maes Hughes. He’s not completely panicked or unnerved by everything that’s going on around him, watching it all with clear, intelligent eyes. They found Hugh Maes’s glasses in Crawford’s desk, shoved in the back of an unlocked drawer. They not only fit Maes Hughes, they are apparently the right prescription. 

Hughes has tried to play off his confusion, being overly friendly and seemingly open, but the BAU are not fooled. This is a clever man in an unknown situation, trying to angle his way into information without asking for it outright. 

Emily steps between Hughes and Dave, keeping her back toward him. “Crawford said he asked after both Mustang and Elric—like he knew them both, right?” she asks, not for the first time. She’s just comforting herself with the repeated information, telling herself that Mustang will be able to help, will have answers. 

“If Deputy Crawford is to be believed, he asked after an Agent Mustang. And an Alphonse.” Reid’s lips flattened into a thin line. 

Prentiss’s phone rings and she picks it up, keeping herself between Hughes and the phone. “Go ahead, Penelope.”

“Well, I looked into Roy Mustang like you asked,” she begins, and they close in more tightly to avoid Garcia’s voice carrying. “Not that I maybe hadn’t already looked into him before, after Ed introduced us.”

“And?” Prentiss prompts, impatient. 

“And nothing. He took community college classes, tested through a _lot_ of physical sciences and chem classes, managed to get a teaching degree, originally working in admissions before landing a teaching gig in a related community college—I’m guessing Mr. Hot and Dignified must have talked his way into the position—while Ed was a student at Pitt. When they moved out here, they did so _together_ , not surprisingly, since they’ve lived together for as long as I can find in their history. Nothing outstanding while he’s been in his current role as a chemistry and physical sciences teacher. Now for the _weird_ part.” The words spill out, though with a stressed undertone Dave isn’t used to hearing from Garcia. 

Dave looks up and exchanges nervous looks with Prentiss and Reid. 

“Emily, you may not be aware of Ed’s backstory, but officially, he grew up in a tech-hating, off-the-grid- maybe cult. I can’t find… _anything_ about it to validate, but if they really are wholly off-the-grid, that might actually be the case?” She sounds like she doesn’t know if she believes that _she_ can’t track down any information. Given the miracles he’s seen her pull off, Dave’s not sure he believes it either. “But here’s the weird thing—I cannot find any, and I mean _any_ background about Mustang prior to he and Ed getting their GEDs. His official identity, as far as I can tell, is entirely forged. It’s a _really good_ forgery, but as far as I can tell, Roy Mustang didn’t exist before he and Ed hit the scene.” 

“He’s definitely ex-military,” Prentiss says. “Could his original identity have been burned?”

“I had that thought too, my most brilliant leader-lady, but if he was, it seems unlikely that he was US-based. I haven’t found _anything,_ guys. Absolutely zip, zilch, nada. It’s downright creepy. It’s the same for Ed, by the way.”

“Did you find anything with someone named Alphonse while looking into Ed?” Reid asks. 

“Alphonse? Ed’s brother?” she asks. 

“Ed has a brother?” Dave asks. 

“Well, I mean, he’s only mentioned him once or twice. He always gets really sad when he does, so I assumed he passed. But I didn’t find anything on him either—not that I expected to. Why, where’d you hear about him?”

“Hugh Maes,” Prentiss says, grim. 

Penelope is quiet for a moment before she says, “Why would he know the name of Ed’s brother when you didn’t?” she asks. 

“That’s a very good question,” Dave says. 

“Did you get anything on Maes?” Reid asks before they can get entirely derailed. 

“Pretty much anything you want, O original genius boy,” she says. “Hugh Maes was pretty much an open book. And I got nothing for a Lieutenant Colonel Maes Hughes. That’s another big whoppin’ zippo. Can you stop finding people who don’t exist?”

“We’ll do our best,” Prentiss says. “Keep digging and see if you can find anything else.”

“Will do, wonder woman,” she says, then adds in a tone thick with unease, “ You all stay safe.”

“We will. Thanks, Garcia.”

“If there’s anything you need, just call.”

“We will.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, Roy enters. I hope he was worth the wait.
> 
> A quick note on Maes's rank--the subtitles usually label him as a Captain, but in the Ishval flashbacks, the letter that Maes gets from Gracia is actually addressed to Lieutenant Colonel, and that's what the wikis label him, so that's what I'm going with. That's also the correct rank to promote him to Brigadier General after his death. (I have no idea what his rank is in the dub. I'm a subtitle snob who runs screaming from dub.)


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The pen in Roy’s hand snaps, and red ink covers his hands like blood. 

Roy spends most of the ride in silence, grading, using his phone as a makeshift light when it becomes too dark outside. He’s not really all that concerned about helping fellow teachers at this point, even though he does like both Cheyenne and Luisa. Mostly, he’s trying desperately not to climb out of his skin. 

He thinks that Hawkeye would be proud of him for using what amounts to _paperwork_ to keep himself distracted. 

Except the thought itself is a distraction because he realizes he hasn’t thought about Hawkeye in… weeks? Surely it hasn’t been _months_ , has it? No. He’s been thinking more about Amestris and home since his fight with Ed, but before then, when was the last time he’d thought of her? Of Havoc and Breda and Fuery? Madam Christmas and his sisters? It’s been nearly _nine years_. Surely Gruman has kicked the bucket? Ed’s grandmother, perhaps even Ed’s teacher…

The pen in Roy’s hand snaps, and red ink covers his hands like blood. 

Roy chokes down the hysterical laugh that wants to bubble out of his throat because although his hands have been covered in metaphorical blood before, it’s _Ed’s_ hands that have been soaked in the literal kind. Another sin laying at Roy’s feet. 

Not for the first time in the last several days, Roy finds himself angry and disgusted with what he’s become. What happened to his _ambition_ ? His _drive?_ How had he— _he_ who orchestrated a successful coup, who had plans to eventually turn his own government to a true democracy—how had he come to this world and just… settled into a domestic life?

Digging into his bag to find the pack of tissues he keeps there and cleans off as much of the ink as he can, he does know. This world is not theirs. They don’t belong to it. And while there are certainly problems with the government in what— they thought—would just be a temporary home, they weren’t the kind of problems that even the two of them could fix by basically subverting the entire structure or overthrowing a few key figures. Even if they wanted to, it didn’t take long for them to understand that their lack of existence prior to coming to this world would have made it impossible. 

Information is simply too readily available. Once people figured out that Roy didn’t exist prior to their arrival, he would be viewed with distrust and suspicion. Roy’s own charm, Ed’s genius, and very good forgeries have gotten them this far, but he senses the thread holding that together is about to be pulled, unwinding the life they have built. 

Roy should be worried, but he finds himself relieved. The thought only reinforces how morally deficient he is, because he knows without being told that if this is _their stuff_ , as Ed had said, it has been paid for with human lives. Yet anticipation hums under his skin. 

He misses Amestris, not just the people but the place that was his home. Yes, it was broken and corrupt, but he could do something about it there. He feels like they’ve been on a strange, extended vacation, and now it’s time to go back to work. 

“You must be worried,” Seaver says, breaking the silence for the first time in hours. 

Worried? Yes and no. Yes, knowing that alchemy has somehow re-entered the picture knowing that something has happened to Ed is anxiety-inducing on a number of levels. At the same time, it’s a strangely familiar mental space. Fullmetal has done something _again_ , and people are freaking out and turning to Roy about it, _again_ — _control your damn dog, Mustang!_ —but Roy trusts Ed. More than he did even during the Promised Day. Enough to let Ed talk him around to performing soul alchemy to link them permanently. The array on his wrist reassures him that Ed is alive. 

No matter how upsetting it was to realize Ed had _run into a fire_ , if nothing else, this has reminded Roy that he _trusts_ Ed. The isolation and silence of the past two days feels stupid and petty with that realization. Ed had hit him where it hurt, unexpectedly, so he needed time to deal with the wound before remembering that Ed loves him as much as he loves Ed. Maybe more. He might take risks, but he would make every effort to make sure he came home to Roy. Ed has never done anything without absolute commitment to it, love least of all. He saved a girl’s life because _he had to_. Because that is the kind of man he is. The kind of _person_ he is. Ed will fight and defend and stand until his last breath because he cannot do anything less. 

The determination, stubbornness, and unwavering courage Ed faces the world with have inspired Roy on more than one occasion. Sometimes, Roy thinks Ed is less a human than a human-shaped force of nature.

And with alchemy back in play? 

A grin curls Roy’s lips, almost against his will. 

Roy would put his money on Ed under nearly any circumstance. But with alchemy in play again? Ed would always be the sure bet. If Ed has alchemy—and he _must_ because Roy can feel that energy like salve to a bruise he’d grown used to but never quite forgotten—he will find a way home. Find a way to get them _both_ home. 

“Of course I’m concerned,” Roy says, realizing Seaver is still waiting for an answer. “But I have faith in Edward.”

_You should be less worried about Ed, and more worried about whatever has planted itself in his path._

.o0o.o0o.o0o.

They do go through a drive-through, but otherwise drive straight through to the small southern Pennsylvania town. As they grow closer, the array on Roy’s wrist moves from a vague itch to active for the first time since they’ve been in this world. Its reassuring warmth that Ed is _alive alive alive_ beats in time with his pulse like it’s fresh again. It’s a little distracting, reminding Roy of _how_ distracting it was when they first applied it. It never gave them true telepathy, but Ed could communicate his arrays to Roy through it if they were close enough. Strong emotions also transmitted, a general sense of wellbeing, and even, proximity. The first week had been at turns mortifying and awe-inspiring. To not just know that Ed loved him, but to _know_ Ed _loved_ him was a gift he’d never imagined. 

They only had a few months with the array and were still figuring out the full extent to which it could be used when they got pulled through to this world. Not being able to feel one another, as they had all too rapidly grown accustomed to, led to unexpected clinginess and anxiety when they were out of one another’s sight for months. They both hated the irrational—and uncharacteristic—dependency, but it brought home how much they needed to keep tabs on one another. 

Feeling the array active again reminds him of how comforting it is to simply _know_ that Ed is alive. The emotional resonance had faded after the first week unless they were touching, so he doesn’t know how Ed is feeling—though hadn’t _that_ been fun to explore during sex?—but he at least has some understanding of Ed’s physical well-being, and vice versa. 

And if the array is active, then _alchemy_ can be used. He touches his fingertips together, envisions his array, and for the first time in nearly _nine years_ , _it’s all there_ . He knows what all the gases in the SUV are, could cherry-pick and recombine them to make them explosive, strip atoms from elements to increase the destructive power. All he’d need is a _spark_ and he could send the whole vehicle up in flames. 

He releases the array without even the telltale static of a transmutation to give away what he’s done. It’s enough to know that _he can_. 

It does make Roy uneasy though. Is it just this area where the alchemy is active? Where it can be touched? Plate tectonics power it in Amestris, but he’s pretty sure this area isn’t seismically active. And he and Ed first landed not terribly far from here, so they’ve driven through this area. They both would have noticed the array activating if it had before.

Giving up on his grading, he puts it away, instead watching the rain and shadows and the trees out the window. He’s more than a little tempted to alchemize the red ink staining his hand off, and if it were light outside, he might. It’s dark though, nearly 9:00 and any tiny spark would be obvious. 

He is surprised when they pull into what appears to be a small police station. “We’re not going to a hotel?” he asks.

“Not yet,” Seaver confirms. “SSAs Prentiss and Rossi wanted to see you as soon as you got here.”

Roy frowns. That isn’t a great sign. 

“If you want to leave your bag in the car, you can,” she says, turning the car off and unbuckling her seat belt. 

Old instincts are prickling. Something is wrong, more wrong than the ominous message Ed left and being personally picked up from work to be taken to a crime scene. Part of him wants to bring the bag in, but with all the papers, it’s kind of a liability. But if he needs to run… he’s going to want the laptop.

He grabs the bag, then follows Seaver, out into the rain, ducking his head and rushing to the overhang. When they step inside, the first thing he does is feel for the gloves in his pocket, reassured by their roughness and the fact that they’re dry. He has no idea why alchemy is suddenly working, has no idea if it will work at the scale it usually does, but just _knowing he has it_ gives him leverage, gives him more than a fighting chance. 

A young officer with a ragged look about him lets them pass the protected front desk through to what looks like the main office. Roy’s eyes find Agents Prentiss, Rossi, and Reid, but not Ed. Seaver makes a beeline to them, and Roy opens his mouth to ask where Ed is, but the words die in his throat as a familiar face catches his eye. 

Maes Hughes looks up at him, exactly as Roy remembers him. Roy’s first feeling is _joy_ , incandescent and thick with relief. _Maes isn’t really dead!_

It’s a heartbeat, no longer, but that heartbeat makes the heartbreak when he remembers that he’s _seen_ his friend’s dead body, buried him, mourned him _ten years ago_ , so much worse _._

“Roy!” Hughes’s voice, full of surprise and relief, and _how dare something use his best friend’s face_.

Fury follows fast and hard on the heels of the heartbreak, and he doesn’t even realize he’s pulling on his glove, growling out “ _Homunculus_ ” with hate that he hasn’t felt since he burned Envy alive, until he tugs and the glove stops. 

The agents and the building are not even a thought. He will become the Butcher of Ishval again to _erase_ this monster— 

“Roy!” the Hughes imposter is yelling, panicking with exaggeration, watching his glove with a veil of unease. Then his eyes sharpen and focus, and he says, “The look in your eyes has changed.”

It stops Roy cold, remembering meeting Maes in Ishval, remembering those words. He lowers his hand—he doesn’t need it raised to snap anyway. He waits. 

“You look like you’ve found some peace,” the imposter says. 

Roy’s lip pulls back in a snarl. “How dare you stand before me wearing that face.”

The imposter laces his fingers together, looking at Roy contemplatively, not genuinely at ease but less afraid, and says, “The last thing I remember is you pointing a gun at me, knowing it couldn’t be you, because I could hear your voice on the phone. Then it wasn’t you, it was Gracia.” He pushes his glasses up, bows his head, and gives a humorless laugh. “And I knew it wasn’t her—my darling Gracia would never have raised a gun to me, but I couldn’t hurt someone with my beloved’s face.” He looks back up at Roy. “I died, didn’t I?” 

Roy is trembling, because everything, _everything_ about him is _exactly right_. The tone, the words, the face, the body language— _it’s all Maes_. 

_But it can’t be_. 

The imposter gives another soft chuff of not-laughter. “We said we’d meet again in hell, but this seems too nice a place for it.”

“Strip,” Roy tells him. 

The gaping, confused look the imposter gives him almost makes him smile, but he has to be sure. 

“Mr. Mustang—” Agent Prentiss begins, bringing them back to his conscious attention. As long as they hadn’t brought out the guns or moved toward him, his brain had discounted them as a threat.

Roy ignores her. “Strip,” he says, raising his hand. “Or I’ll do it for you.”

That spurs the maybe-Maes into action. “All right, all right!” he says, pulling the oddly-sized shirt off. Roy shoves past the gaping agents, ignoring them. He doesn’t care how crazy this all sounds or looks right now. 

“Is this really necessary?” Agent Rossi asks.

“ _Yes_ ,” Roy says emphatically. 

He manhandles the _person_ around, inspecting every length of bared skin, combing through his hair, trying to find an ouroboros sigil, making the Maes-thing squawk and squirm, but he doesn’t argue. When he’s shown Roy even his tongue and Roy has overlooked every inch of him, he’s forced to concede that whatever this is, it’s not a homunculus. It has Maes’s old scars, the ones Roy knew of. It has a new one too, from the shot that killed him. 

“Are you finished?” the Maes person asks, both amused and exasperated in exactly the right measures. 

“I don’t know,” Roy admits, because he’s at a loss. 

The man pulls his pants back up, then pauses before he pulls his shirt on over his head. “It figures even your grays would come in with dignity,” he says, and the fondness is clear. He pulls the shirt back over his head and resettles his glasses. “How long has it been?” 

“Ten years,” Roy says softly, still not sure he believes it. 

“ _Ten years_ ?” the man repeats. Then he buries his hands in his hair. “My beautiful Gracia! Has she moved on! And my perfect Elicia!! My darling baby girl! She’s a _teenager_ now! I’ve missed it all!” 

It’s both Maes’s usual over-the-top adoration of his family mixed with genuine loss. It’s the final straw for Roy. No one could fake that. No one could match it. 

“It’s really you,” he says, leaning against the desk he is closest to because if he doesn’t, he’s going to fall over. “You’re alive.” He begins to chuckle, the adrenaline rush and ping-ponging emotions ricocheting back to shock and relief again. Before he knows it, his laughter has dissolved into hiccuping sobs. 

Maes doesn’t hesitate to pull him into his arms and just hold him. Even the scent of him, buried below an old man’s smell, is the same. Roy clings to him and cries in relief and joy and sorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope Roy and Maes's reunion was everything you wanted. 
> 
> Also *whispers* _if you haven't seen it, notice the new part to Wreckage. I wrote a "little" Thanksgiving bonus for ya'll, so check it out if you haven't already_.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Partner?” Hughes asks, a somewhat delighted tone in his voice. 

“What the hell?” Prentiss asks, bewildered. 

Dave doesn’t blame her. Their walking dead man has been… not  _ silent _ , but definitely  _ not cooperative _ . He’d only asked a couple of questions before shutting down hard. Something about him pings Dave’s radar as military, but that’s not surprising seeing as Hugh Maes had been military. But he’d been  _ young _ military—where it should have still been new and obvious and he should nearly squeak when he walks. This guy has the military in his very being, ground in, simply part of his bearing the way longtime vets have it. 

Rather like Mustang, actually. 

And speaking of Mustang, his crying has quieted, but he’s still clinging to Hughes like he’ll vanish if Mustang lets go. 

_ “I died, didn’t I?” _

How is it possible that their walking dead man doesn’t know the woman who has his picture on her desk, but he knows Ed’s significant other? The looks Mustang had spun through, from shock to  _ murderous rage _ , concerned him. 

“I’d like to know what he thought he was going to do with his hand?” Reid asks, keeping his voice low and an eye on Mustang and Hughes. Hughes is watching them back, but most of his attention is on Mustang. “Did he think he was going to snap at us or something?”

“Seaver, was he wearing that glove when you picked him up?” Prentiss asks. 

Seaver shakes her head. “No, ma’am. I have to assume he had it with him, but you didn’t say anything about him being under arrest, so I didn’t search him or anything.”

“Hughes definitely acted like it was dangerous,” Prentiss says, grim. “But he didn’t try to dodge or run…”

“Like he knew it wouldn’t help,” Reid finishes the observation. 

“I think it’s time to intrude on this reunion,” Dave says, crossing the room. 

Hughes says something to Mustang, too low to catch, and Mustang straightens, rubbing his eyes. Though he still looks pale and his eyes are bloodshot from crying, he pulls himself together admirably. 

“Agents,” he greets, voice still a little rough. 

“Mr. Mustang,” Dave says. “I see you know our Mr. Hughes here.”

Mustang takes a deep, shaky breath and says, “I do.”

“I’m sure you understand with three FBI agents missing, we have a lot of questions,” Prentiss steps in. 

Mustang’s brow furrows, and he finally manages to pull his eyes away from Hughes. He takes the three of them in, seeming to realize for the first time that Ed isn’t with them. “Missing?” he asks. 

“Yes, you partner among them,” Prentiss says, her tone conveying just how unimpressed she is with his observation skills at the moment. 

“Partner?” Hughes asks, a somewhat delighted tone in his voice. 

“You didn’t tell me what happened to Edward,” Mustang says. His bare hand goes to his right wrist as if it’s some kind of touchstone. “You just said you needed me to come. I assumed he’s fine.”

“Edward?” Hughes blurts. “They asked me about Edward, but he’s not your partner, is he? Or he’s your partner, like… work partner?” 

Dave is agitated, worried about his team, and a little eager to throw fuel on the metaphorical fire to see what information it gives them, because Hughes seemed familiar with Ed, but had clammed up after confirming that. “Mr. Mustang isn’t an FBI agent. He is Agent Elric’s  _ romantic  _ partner.”

Mustang winces and Hughes stares in complete incomprehension for a moment before his expression hardens. 

“ _ Edward _ , Roy?” he asks, and there’s a cold undertone in his voice that tells them all exactly  _ how much he does not approve _ . 

“You were dead,” Mustang says defensively. 

“So you seduce your subordinate?” 

_ What the fuck?  _ Dave thinks. 

Prentiss is not as restrained. “What the  _ hell  _ are you talking about?” she demands. 

“Agent Elric was recruited to the FBI straight out of college. In what capacity could he have been Mr. Mustang’s subordinate?” Reid asks. 

Hughes glares at Mustang disapprovingly while Mustang glares back defiantly. 

No one speaks. 

“ _ Gentlemen _ ,” Prentiss prompts in that tone that says it is  _ not _ a request. 

“I don’t know enough about what’s going on to explain,” Hughes says, low and even, the kind of tone that says he’s gritting his teeth so he doesn’t lose his temper. “So, Roy, why don’t you explain to us all?” 

It occurs to Dave that Mustang is still not acting nervous about Ed. Then again, he’d all but laughed at Dave a few months back when Ed had been kidnapped by an unsub, so maybe this was a similar insouciance? 

He looks at Mustang and Hughes having a silent conversation and disregards the theory. This is different. At that time, Mustang had been bemused, assured. It was simple faith in Ed’s ability to get himself out of a situation. This time it seems more… grounded. As if he’s somehow sure that Ed is fine in a way that is from more than simple faith in his partner’s ability. 

Mustang finally huffs. “What did you see, when you first woke up?” he asks Hughes. “And we’ll go from there.”

“Edward,” Hughes says immediately. “Or I thought it was—but his eyes were wrong. They were brown.”

“It was him,” Mustang says, impatient. “I’ll explain later.”

Hughes looks skeptical but continues. “It was an all-white room? With huge doors. I only saw him for a couple of moments, but now that I think about it, he was older and looked horrified…” he trails off. 

Dave doesn’t blame him.  _ Mustang _ looks like he can’t decide if he’s going to pass out or throw up. He lifts his gloved hand, still cradling the wrist. On the back of the glove is some strange circle, stitched in blood-red thread. He vaguely remembers that Mustang has a scar on the back of that hand—one that is shaped like a circle. Seems an unlikely coincidence. 

Hughes jumps up and pushes Mustang into the chair he’d been sitting in. “Sit down before you fall down,” he says, still obviously concerned for his friend no matter how much he disapproves. 

“That’s it?” he asks, voice shaky. “That’s all you saw?”

“That’s all I remember,” Hughes confirms. 

“Of course… you’re alive, so there must have been…”

“Must have been what?” Prentiss demands. 

Hughes leans against the desk, arms folded, but his expression is solemn. “Human transmutation, right?” he asks. 

Mustang nods. 

“Human transmutation?” Prentiss asks, but it comes together for Dave.

“That’s the term for trying to resurrect someone, isn’t it?” he asks. 

Mustang grimaces. “Among other things, but yes,” he says. He’s regaining his color, but he’s still paler than Dave likes. 

“All right,” Prentiss says, at the end of her patience. “I have three missing agents, a dead unsub, at least seven victims, and both of you seem to have answers. So start talking before we start arresting for obstruction of justice.”

Hughes and Mustang exchange another silent conversation, and Prentiss is visibly working not to lose her temper. 

Hughes breaks the ice. “Do you want to see the array?” he asks. 

Mustang closes his eyes. “No,” he says. “But I need to.”

“Ed called the circle an array too,” Dave says. 

“I’d like to talk to the unsub too, but you said he’s dead?” Mustang looks at Prentiss, ignoring Dave’s comment. 

“Tucker Maes died of blood loss after losing his left arm, right leg, eyes, tongue, and  _ ears _ ,” Prentiss says coldly. 

“Tucker?” Mustang asks, something between suspicion and disbelief. 

Hughes winces. “We tried to save him, but…”

Rather than looking surprised or upset at the information, Mustang becomes thoughtful, eyes staring into space as he links his fingers together in front of him. “A leg, an arm, eyes, tongue, and ears…”

“Left arm and right leg,” Hughes points out, raising an eyebrow, as if that’s somehow significant. Dave realizes that they mirror Ed’s prosthetics and feels vaguely sick. 

Running a hand over his face, Mustang sighs. “This is Ed’s area of expertise, not mine.” 

“Elric has experience in resurrecting people?” Prentiss asks flatly. 

“No,” Mustang says. “If it weren’t for Maes sitting here, I’d tell you with absolute certainty that the dead cannot be brought back. Ed has experience in…” he trails and runs his hand over his face again. “It’s going to sound insane.”

“I have fifteen missing bodies and a walking dead man, Mr. Mustang,” Prentiss says. “I’m willing to entertain even insane explanations at the moment.”

That gets Mustang’s attention. “Fifteen missing bodies?” he asks. “You said seven victims, not fifteen missing bodies.”

“Twelve senior citizens and my agents. When we got to the scene where Mr. Hughes was with our dead unsub, all of the victims had vanished and all that was left was the clothing they were wearing.”

“Did you find clothing for the missing agents?” Mustang asks with the kind of look and tone that expects answers. 

“We didn’t,” Reid says. “Just for the missing victims, along with some jewelry and even a pacemaker.”

Mustang’s eyes close in regret. “Your victims are almost certainly dead. The agents… are probably not.”

“How can you be sure?” Seaver asks. 

“Yeah, Roy. How can you be sure?” Hughes wonders, sounding curious but not confrontational.

“Ed is alive. As far as I can tell, he’s not in any physical distress. If he’s alive and you didn’t find his clothing, there’s a good chance your other agents are also alive if you didn’t find theirs.”

Hughes frowns. “How do you know?”

With another put-upon sigh, Mustang pulls up his right sleeve and bares his wrist. Tattooed there is a circle, one much more intricate and detailed than the one on the back of his glove. It reminds Dave more of the circles in this case. “I know because our souls are linked. I can sense him.”

There’s a beat of silence before Prentiss says, “Please tell me you’re joking,” with a half smile on her face, but it’s more disbelief than amusement. 

“ _ Roy _ ,” Hughes says, tone thick with disappointment.

“Don’t take that tone with me!” Mustang defends. “This was 100% Edward’s idea. The array was his design!”

“And you  _ agreed  _ to it?”

“Maes,” Mustang says with the look of someone who is past tired of this conversation, “Have I ever,  _ ever _ been able to make Edward do a damned thing he wasn’t damned well willing to do?  _ Ever _ ?” 

Hughes looks grumpy but doesn’t protest. 

“Have you ever known me to be able to keep him from doing something he felt was important, no matter how stupid or reckless or dangerous?” 

Hughes looks grumpier but still doesn’t say anything. 

“Do you really think I could have seduced him if he weren’t entirely onboard with it?” 

“You were still his commanding officer.”

“Commanding officer?” Reid interrupts, and Dave sees the light bulb go off on Reid’s face. “Ed was a child soldier? Is that how he lost his arm and leg? But wait—I don’t think he would have been involved in anything in the US, as outside of the last World War, the US military has never really dabbled in accepting underage recruits. And even then, it was more of a need-based case where the record-keeping was relatively easy to forge and they needed bodies anyway.” 

Mustang shoots a glare at Hughes that reads  _ look what you’ve done now _ as clear as day, and Hughes winces in reply. 

Reid is continuing about the likelihood of the US running an underground program, but Dave is staring at Mustang, and it…  _ fits _ .  _ Damn it _ , it  _ makes sense _ . Ed’s insider knowledge of militaries in general, how military-minded people think, the way soldiers react. Everything that Dave had attributed to growing up with a military family isn’t secondhand experience, it’s  _ direct _ experience. But it’s not traditional US military because he doesn’t know the nuances and rivalries between the branches. Dave always attributed that gap to it being secondhand knowledge, but could be firsthand if he simply wasn’t involved in the typical operations because he was _ a child soldier _ . 

He feels like an idiot for not seeing it sooner. Ed’s hypervigilance, the way he keeps distance from people, his deep disdain and distrust of organized military, second only to his hatred of organized religion, in hindsight they make perfect sense if you know he was active military. 

Whatever program they were involved in was so off the books that both Ed and Mustang have been wiped from existence before getting out of it. No wonder Penelope can’t find anything on them. 

Judging by the looks on Mustang’s and Hughes’s faces, they’ve tuned Reid out. Dave feels like they’re still missing something. 

“What military program were you with, exactly?” he asks into the lull where Reid dries up. He includes them both because it’s clear that whatever it is, they were both involved. 

They exchange another look, then Hughes straightens and salutes perfectly. “Lieutenant Colonel Maes Hughes of the Amestris State Army.”

“You’re a brigadier general now. They promoted you two ranks posthumously,” Mustang informs, though there’s affection in it. 

“Whoo…” Hughes says with a grin. “So I outrank you now.”

Mustang returns it, fiercer. “Brigadier General Roy Mustang of the Amestris State Army.”

“You’re  _ generals _ ,” Prentiss says, looking between them, disbelieving. Dave is in her court because Mustang is  _ maybe  _ forty, and they know what he’s been doing for the last almost nine years, which would have made him a general at  _ thirty _ . Dave doesn’t buy it either. 

“Amestris?” Reid says with that unique tone he has when someone has said something that is fundamentally in error as though it’s true. “There’s no country in the world called that. Is that some kind of organizational name or code? And what was Ed? A major?” He makes the suggestion with obvious sarcasm.

Mustang shakes his head. “Second lieutenant,” he says.

“Bullshit,” Dave says, entirely involuntary. Ed couldn’t have been more than seventeen. Second lieutenant was what officers straight out of school ended up. Given the way Hughes’s eyes narrow and the frown that pulls at his mouth, Mustang is lying. 

The unhappy microexpressions are swiftly covered with exaggerated surprise. “Edward got promoted?” he asks. Mustang gives a small incline of his head. It isn’t a nod, and something significant passes between them. “I wouldn’t have expected him to stay in long enough…” he trails, then tilts his head thoughtfully to the side. “I guess he stayed for you?” 

“He transferred to report up through Olivier’s command when we began dating,” Mustang explains. 

“General Armstrong? And  _ Edward _ . That seems an explosive combination,” Hughes comments, and this time, it seems he’s honestly amused. 

Mustang’s features soften in affection. “Restoring Alphonse went a long way to calming Ed. Besides, he has a very healthy respect for women in authority.”

Hughes grins happily. “He did it then? He restored them both?” 

“Alphonse, yes, but not himself.”

That makes Hughes’s face fall a bit. “That’s a damn shame.”

Mustang shrugs. “Ed is at peace with it. Or he was.”

“Hold on here,” Prentiss snaps. “Let me make sure I’m following this correctly. You’re all three members of a completely made-up military organization,  _ Elric _ is a  _ second lieutenant _ , you have a magical circle on your wrist that ties  _ your souls _ together, and that’s how you know he’s okay? And what do you mean he ‘restored’ his brother?” 

“It’s not  _ magic _ ,” Mustang says with derision. “It’s  _ alchemy _ . It’s a  _ science _ .” 

Hughes snorts. “You know you sound just like Edward when you say that, right?” 

“Nine years, Maes,” Mustang says, longsuffering. “That’s bound to happen.”

Hughes looks thoughtful. “We aren’t done with that conversation,” he says, but he doesn’t sound angry or upset about it anymore. 

“Alchemy?” Reid asks. “Are you talking about the speculative philosophy that aimed to achieve transmutation of base metals into gold, the cure for all disease, and a means of immortality?”

Mustang looks pained. “That is your understanding of it, yes.” He steeples his fingers and rests them against his chin. 

“And what’s your understanding of it?” Prentiss demands. 

Hughes raises his hands in that universal  _ don’t look at me _ gesture. “I am not the alchemist here.”

“Which implies that you are,” Dave says. 

Mustang looks up at him through lidded eyes, assessing. Dave had assumed that Mustang was intelligent—that, at least, is something he believes is a requirement to attract Ed’s attention—but he didn’t expect him to be  _ shrewd _ . 

After a long moment, Mustang begins, voice taking on a didactic tone. “Alchemy is the science of understanding, deconstructing, and reconstructing. But you can’t make something out of nothing. You’re quite familiar with the Law of Conservation of Mass, I assume?” 

Reid automatically provides the explanation. “The Law of Conservation of Mass states that mass in an isolated system is neither created nor destroyed by chemical reactions or physical transformations. According to the law, the mass of the products of a chemical reaction must be equal to the mass of the reactants.”

Dave appreciates the refresher, but, “And what does that have to do with your ‘alchemy’?” He doesn’t make the finger quotes around  _ alchemy _ , but he’s sure Mustang heard them. 

Mustang lowers his hands, then separates them, reaching out deliberately. “Alchemy is the science of understanding that this pencil holder—” He touches the rim of the ordinary black wire pencil holder. “—is a carbon and chromium alloy coated by a polyurethane resin powder coating—polyethylene terephthalate, if you want to use the common chemical name for it.” A blue, lightning-like spark arcs over Mustang’s hand and into the pencil holder. Mustang continues to speak through the flashing, calm, like this is expected, compelling even through the distraction. “Deconstructing it down to its components, then reconstructing it into something else.” When the flare fades, instead of a pencil holder, there is an elaborate rearing black wire horse, still with all the pens and pencils inside its stomach, though Dave can’t see how you’d get them out. 

Hughes whistles and picks up the horse. “When did you get so good at fine detail like this? And without…” He glances up at Mustang thoughtfully. “You didn’t…” Mustang shoots him a look, and he changes course before he continues, “I expect this kind of detail from Edward.”

“ _ Edward _ can do this kind of thing?” Dave asks, a little awed. 

Hughes snorts. “This kind of thing was probably child’s play to Edward and Alphonse—”

“Yes, well,” Mustang smoothly interrupts. “They are geniuses, the likes of which you only see once every few hundred years. But to come back to your point, Agent Prentiss. Edward  _ was _ indeed an officer. We were all members of our country’s military, and that country is called Amestris. We have found no equivalent for it in your records. Ed and I came here nearly nine years ago because Ed was dealing with a rogue alchemist. As far as we have been able to determine, Ed was caught up in the transmutation and pulled through to this world. We believe that our soul link—” He lifts his wrist to show the circle again. “—pulled me through as well.”

“Are you trying to tell us that you’re from another  _ world _ ?” Dave asks, trying to make sense of what he just heard. 

“That is exactly what I’m telling you,” Mustang says, lacing his fingers back together. “And  _ that _ ”—he nods to the horse—“is your proof.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, Roy is lying about Ed's rank. Yes, he demoted Ed, and yes, Rossi still thinks that's too high. For reference, a second lieutenant (at least in the US) is usually the first rank you get when completing officer's school (~22). It is an entry-level officer, but Rossi still thinks it's BS that Ed was a second lieutenant at sixteen or seventeen.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed the team's reaction. And Maes's. 😁


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "So stop stalling and let me help or get the hell out of my way.”

Agent Prentiss grabs Agent Rossi’s shoulder and Dr. Reid’s arm, says, “Excuse us for a minute,” and yanks them aside, out of Roy and Maes’s earshot. 

Maes’s eyes watch them, but under his breath, he murmurs, “Since when do can you do Edward’s trick with no circles?” 

Roy sighs. “A  _ lot _ has happened,” he replies, keeping his voice low. It’s a laughable understatement. How can he tell Maes about the homunculi, about the source of the philosopher's stone, about the nation-wide array…

_ The nation-wide array. _ The thing Maes had been killed for seeing. “We found it,” Roy tells him quietly. “We found the array.”

A tiny bit of stress eases from Maes’s shoulders. “Are… Gracia and Elicia…”

“They were fine, last we saw them,” Roy tells him honestly. “But we’ve been here for eight years, so my information really isn’t up-to-date.” 

It’s not enough, but Maes seems to realize it’s all Roy can tell him. “Eight  _ years _ ?” he asks, leaning back and crossing his arms. “Why haven’t you…?”

“Up until I got up in these mountains, we haven’t been able to make alchemy work in this world. That horse,” he nods to where Maes had set it on the desk, “is the first bit of alchemy I’ve been able to do since we got here.” 

“Why here?” Maes asks. “Why now?” 

Roy shrugs. “Ed called me, left a message on my phone. He said this case was ‘our stuff.’ Someone in this world has figured out how to make alchemy work,” he explains, keeping an eye on the agents, who are likewise glancing over at them. 

Maes lifts a skeptical eyebrow. “Someone could figure out something you and Edward couldn’t?” 

“They must have sacrificed human lives to do it.”

Frowning, Maes taps his finger on his arm. “Making a philosopher’s stone?” 

Roy blinks, surprised, then remembers that Ed had told Maes about the ingredients of the stones long before he told Roy. Maes’s discovery of the nation-wide array had required immediately removing Maes from the board, but even knowing the source of philosopher’s stones had probably put a target on him. “It’s possible,” he says. Humans have always and likely will always seek immortality, but it doesn’t feel right. “I’m missing something.”

Agent Prentiss moves back their way. “Something you want to share with the class, Mr. Mustang?” she asks. 

He somehow manages to refrain from commenting on the less-than-inspired snark. Compared to Ed, she’s an amateur anyway. “There was an array, correct? A circle?” he asks. “Ed left me a message saying this was ‘our stuff.’ I assume alchemy. Which means there’s a circle. Are you going to show it to me or not?” 

She folds her arms. “We have a lot more questions.”

“And we’re done answering them,” Roy tells her, firm, but not unkind. “They aren’t relevant to the current problem. The array is.”

“Your boyfriend is missing,” Prentiss snaps. “And you’re just  _ done _ ?” 

Roy leans forward and props his elbows on his knees. “I know that Ed is alive. I have seen him do things that are nothing short of miraculous. I have faith that wherever he is, he  _ will _ find his way back to me, or a way to pull me to him. That said, I’d prefer to be working the problem from this side as well. Since none of you are alchemists, the array will be meaningless to you. You cannot use alchemy. Whatever has happened to your teammates, there is nothing  _ you  _ can do to help them. You need to rely on Ed or me.” He looks purposefully from one agent to the next before continuing. “If you would prefer to simply sit and wait for Ed to figure it out, then, well, you have no need of me.” 

The glares he gets for that statement are harsh, but he knows it’s their own impotence driving them. 

“Assuming we believe you, if you’re so confident that Ed can figure it out, then why haven’t you found a way back to your world?” Reid asks. 

Sitting back, Roy says, “Because before now, we couldn’t get alchemy to work. Ed hypothesized that we could power it with human souls, but fortunately for you, neither of us are morally bankrupt or desperate enough to be willing to commit murder to test it.”

“Wait, alchemy wasn’t working  _ at all _ ?” Dr. Reid asks. “You couldn’t use it  _ at all _ ?”

“There’s obviously  _ some _ form of alchemy here. Ed’s automail—his prosthetics—works so we knew it had to exist, but that,” he nods toward the horse, “hasn’t been possible for either of us. Till now. Till this place.” He meets Agent Prentiss’s eyes and continues, “You could have just called like the last time Ed went missing. You knew this time was different. You brought me here because you knew on some level I would be able to help. So stop stalling and let me help or get the hell out of my way.”

.o0o.o0o.o0o.

“ _ Motherfucker _ !” 

It takes a moment, but the continuing, fluent cursing soon jars JJ’s memory.  _ Ed _ , she thinks. “Ed?” she calls. 

The cursing cuts off abruptly, but before Ed can get to her, she hears Derek call, “JJ?”

“Thank  _ fuck _ ,” Ed says, his form a wavy outline in the heat. The sun is blistering, and when she lifts her arm to shield her eyes, sand clings to her skin. Fine, yellow sand, like the kind she might see in any desert special on TV. 

Ed pulls her to her feet with a metal hand under her arm like she weighs nothing. She’s not sure what surprises her more—his touch or his strength. Then she remembers his arm holding that beam, and hauling her to her feet seems less impressive. 

“Morgan!” Ed yells. 

He pops up over a dune, shading his own eyes. “Ed? JJ?”

“Hughes!” Ed yells, his voice echoing back to him as Derek closes the distance. There’s no response. His brows furrow, but he looks at them. “Are you both okay?” he demands. “Nothing hurts, limbs attached?” He’s looking over her with worried eyes, like a parent whose child just did something stupid and dangerous but managed to come out unscathed. 

“I’m… fine,” she says. “Confused, but okay. What the hell happened? How did we get here?”

Ed ignores her and looks over Derek. “And you?” 

“All limbs accounted for, as far as I can tell,” Derek replies. “I’m with JJ though. Where the hell are we?”

“Yeah, and how did we get here? I thought we were in Pennsylvania mining country…” 

Ed’s eyes scan the horizon, watchful, wary. JJ tries to remember if she’s seen him like this before, but she doesn’t think she has. “What’s the last thing either of you remember?” he asks, turning in a slow circle. 

JJ follows his gaze but there’s literally nothing in any direction that she can see but desert. 

“The circle. The sparks?” JJ says, the memory more scattered flashes than a connected movie, she frowns. “How did you get out of the car?”

He raised his hand, the metal fist glinting in the bright light. “I broke the window,” he says dryly, annoyed but not angry. She winces anyway as he says, “Morgan?”

“The victims,” Derek says. “Tucker Maes... grinning.”

Sighing, Ed turns back to face them. “Nothing about a white space? No giant doors?” he asks. 

“You don’t mean the barn door, do you?” JJ asks. She thinks back, but she remembers running to help one of the victims, and… nothing else. 

“No,” he says flatly. “That’s probably for the best.”

“You know where we are, don’t you?” Derek asks, watching him. 

“I think so,” Ed admits. “I think we’re in the Xerxian Desert, between Amestris and Xing.” 

Derek stares. “The  _ what  _ between what and where?” 

JJ’s not sure she would have phrased it  _ quite _ like that, but she empathizes with the sentiment. 

Ed appears to slump a little. “Amestris is the country Roy and I are from,” he explains. 

Trading a confused look with Derek, JJ says, “International geography isn’t my best subject, but I don’t remember a country called Amestris.”

“It doesn’t exist in your world,” Ed says, softly, almost regretfully. 

“I must have misheard,” Derek says after a beat. “Did you just imply you’re from another world?” He’s looking at Ed incredulously. 

“You wanted to know why I couldn’t tell you about the circle?” Ed says, motioning around. “Forgive me if I thought ‘I’m from another world’ wouldn’t go over well.” 

JJ shields her eyes. “I’ll worry more about the other world when I know we’re not going to dehydrate in this desert,” she says before they dissolve into bickering. She knows they like and respect each other, but they remind her of her brothers—they just can’t resist picking at each other. She’ll deal with the impossibility of what Ed’s saying when she’s not worried about dying. 

“Don’t worry about that,” Ed says, waving her off. 

“Is this desert small or something?” JJ asks. From where she stands, how much she can feel she’s sweating and how quickly it’s evaporating, she thinks her concern is warranted. 

“No, but I can get water for us, so it’s not that big of a deal.”

JJ stares. “ _ How _ ?” she asks when it becomes obvious he’s not going to volunteer. 

He frowns, lifting his left arm, he pulls back his sleeve, revealing a circle tattooed there. JJ thinks she’s seen that tattoo before—on Mustang maybe? He frowns at it and bites his lip, then sighs, dropping his hand. He squares his shoulders, closes his eyes, then claps his hands together in front of him, almost like he’s praying, except his elbows are out to the side. Then he drops to the ground and puts his hands in the sand. 

Blue-white lightning sparks from the ground, the same as they saw in the barn. JJ and Derek both step back, but what looks like a fountain raises up from the sand, including a gargoyle-shaped spout. The base is also some ghastly, gothic-looking thing of sharp edges and skulls. 

Ed stays crouched for a few minutes before he dusts off his hands and stands, then steps over to the fountain, steps on the tail of the gargoyle like a pedal, and  _ water  _ pours from it, just like it was a normal plumbed water fountain. Pulling off his left glove, Ed sticks his hand in the stream for a moment, rubbing the water between his fingers, smelling it, then he shrugs and leans forward to take a drink. 

“It’s fresh,” he says, straightening. “And cold. You should drink some.”

While they gape at him dumbly, Ed claps his hands together again, then kneels back to the sand. The blue-white lightning sparks again, and a half dozen vessels rise up out of the sand, complete with chain straps. They’re also ornately decorated, jars that could be works of art in other circumstances, even if the subject matter was a little tacky. 

“How are you doing that?” JJ finally manages to ask. 

Ed picks up the first jar? Jug? Then he pulls off a  _ lid _ and steps to the fountain to fill it up. 

“ _ Ed _ ,” she says, using her best mom voice. 

Sighing, he says, “It’s alchemy. It’s not magic. And it tells me we’re back in my world.”

“You made a  _ fountain _ ,” Derek points out. “In the middle of the  _ desert _ . By  _ clapping _ .” 

Ed rolls his eyes, releasing the tail and handing the jug to JJ. “Drink up,” he says. “Alchemy is the science of deconstructing and reconstructing matter. Sand is one of the best basic substances to transmute. And we might be  _ in a desert _ , but there’s still groundwater, if you go down deep enough. I just transmuted the sand into pipes to tap into it and made the cistern so it’s easy to use. I’ll put it back before we get moving.” 

Rather than staring like an idiot, JJ takes a deep drink of the water, which is so cold it gives her a chill despite the heat outside. She can feel its cool chase all the way down to her stomach, and it makes her realize how thirsty she is, so she takes another deep drink, the clean-tasting water refreshing in a way she can barely describe. 

Ed tosses the second bottle at Derek, who manages to catch it. 

“Can anyone here do that?” Derek asks, running his hands over the jug as if he can’t quite believe it’s real, even in his hands. “Can Mustang?”

“No,” Ed says, snorting as he grabs another jug. “Well, maybe Roy could do this?” He hesitates as he thinks about it. “Maybe… earths aren’t really his area of expertise. In theory anyone can learn alchemy, but not a lot do, and those who do are usually super specialized.” 

“What’s your specialization?” JJ asks, putting the lid on the water jug, not wanting it to evaporate. 

“I’m best with earths and metals, but I’m a generalist,” he says, watching the jug fill. When it’s done, he takes the chain and loops it over his shoulder, then bends to pick up the next one. 

“Do you know how we got here?” Derek asks, finally moving back closer to them. 

“Kinda.”

“Ed, you have got to give us more than that,” JJ admonishes. 

“I don’t even fully understand how Roy and I got to your world to begin with. I don’t know why we got pulled through back to Amestris instead of…” he trails off and looks back down at the jug. 

“Instead of?” JJ prompts. 

It takes a moment, but the words come, soft and full of regret. “Instead of being fuel for the transmutation, like those old people were.”

“They’re dead?” Derek asks, pained. “All of them? Are you sure?”

Ed caps the jug in his hand and stares at it blindly for a long moment. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, they’re gone.” 

“Do you know how to get us home?” JJ asks. 

She almost doesn’t catch the jug Ed tosses in her direction before he bends to pick up another one. Ed silently fills the next while she trades uncomfortable looks with Derek, until that one is full and tossed back to Derek. Ed picks up the last and begins to fill it. 

“Ed?” she asks. “Can you get us home?” 

“Not yet,” he says, watching the water fill the last jug. “But I  _ will _ . I didn’t have alchemy in your world. At least, apparently, not unless it’s powered by human souls anyway. But we’re not in your world anymore.” He dusts off his hand on his jacket, tilts his head back and pours the water over his eyes. He reaches up and pulls something out of one eye, then the other, then rinses his eyes again. When he looks back at JJ, she can’t resist a gasp as she stares into eyes that are a pure golden yellow unlike  _ anything _ she’s ever seen before. “I  _ will _ get you home, and I will get Roy back. I promise.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just in case anyone is getting confused (because I do this to myself a little bit), I tend to round up timelines. So it's been mentioned that Roy and Ed have been in CM world for about 9 years or nearly 9 years a lot, but sometimes they have to cite how long it's actually been, not how long it's nearly been. Roy and Ed have been in CM world for 8 years (nearly 9). Ed is coming up on 3 years with the BAU. 
> 
> Can I also say that ya'll are unreal and wonderful and thank you so much for all the love you've shown this crazy little plot bunny of mine? I never ever imagined that it would have a fraction of this popularity, and When They Pick Through has officially surpassed Nothing Beautiful in every metric, including hits, and that's just amazing. I hope I can keep meeting your expectations. And I hope you enjoyed finally getting to see where Ed, Morgan, and JJ are. 
> 
> Also -- keep an eye out for a little bonus on Sunday for RoyEd Week.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s clear to Ed that both JJ and Morgan are still in shock. They haven’t really processed that they’re in another world, and every time Ed does alchemy, their eyes kind of glaze over as if their brains just say _does not compute._

It’s clear to Ed that both JJ and Morgan are still in shock. They haven’t really processed that they’re in another world, and every time Ed does alchemy, their eyes kind of glaze over as if their brains just say  _ does not compute. _ He gives them a couple minutes on their own by raising a column out of the sand to see if he can get an idea of where they are. He also checks to see if there are signs of anyone else being around, but there aren’t. If Ed really saw Hughes, their Maes Hughes, either he didn’t get pulled through with them or he didn’t get dumped out where they are. Considering he was pulled through a different door, Ed’s assuming the first. Which means that Hughes might be in the same world as Roy. Roy may have to deal with the resurrection of his best friend… alone. 

There is nothing Ed can do about it at the moment, so he turns his attention to problems he  _ can  _ deal with. 

He’s never learned the desert well, and except for Xerxes’s ruins, Ed isn’t aware of any landmarks in the place. If he can’t figure out where they are and which direction they need to be walking, he may be making them a temporary shelter until night falls and he can navigate by the stars. Fuck, he is sweltering in his coat and layers. 

Squinting, he makes out something on the horizon. He fixes the array he wants in his mind, relieved that they still come as naturally as breathing— _ fuck _ , even after nearly a decade, he  _ really _ fucking missed this— then kneels on his column to pull out a spyglass. Sand really is one of the best bases for transmutation. He stands back up and looks through the glass, relieved that he managed to calibrate the glass correctly, and sure enough, he can make out Xerxes’s ruins in the distance.

Dropping to sit, throwing his legs over the side of the column, Ed takes a moment to consider. It’s definitely at least twenty-five miles off, which, while doable, is going to suck in this heat. He can feel his automail port heating up, which is far from ideal, but traveling at night has its own risks. 

Not many though, since he has his alchemy back. 

That’s something he has no idea how to feel about. It’s been nearly ten years since he had his alchemy. He was  _ used _ to not having it, has never regretted giving it up for Al, but he has no idea what the repercussions of him getting it back are. It’s both amazing to have it back and terrifying. What if Truth took Al back as a toll for him getting his gate back? Ed never tried to recover it, even though he missed it like another limb, it was an acceptable loss. Having Al back whole and healthy enough had been enough. Just like sacrificing his arm again for Roy’s sight had been worth it. He had been at peace with his decisions. 

Now he has alchemy back, and all he can do is hope that Truth hasn’t decided that Ed regaining it demands a further toll. They’re in Amestris, so if he can get to civilization, maybe he can get in contact with Al and find out for himself. 

As for Roy… well, the soul array on his wrist is active for the first time since they had fallen into that other world. It’s just a barely noticeable but consistent warmth, none of the vague tugging that tells him what direction Roy is in like it used to have. He takes that to mean that Roy didn’t get pulled through with him this time, and he doesn’t know why it didn’t work, but he’ll figure it out. Amestris, as much as he loves and misses it, isn’t home if Roy isn’t here. 

If Roy still wants him…

He shakes his head, forcing that thought out of his mind. Given the option, he knows Roy would want to come home, so Ed is going to figure out how to send JJ and Morgan back to their world and pull Roy back to theirs. Once he does that… if Roy decides… Well, he’ll deal with that then. He’s not giving up on Roy, giving up on  _ them _ until Roy tells him it’s over with his own mouth.

He claps again to send the column back to the ground, jumping off a few feet from the ground as it dissolves back into sand. 

“So the Xerxes ruins are a solid twenty miles in that direction,” he says, pointing east with the spyglass. 

“Where did you get that?” Morgan asks. 

“I transmuted it,” Ed says as if the answer should be obvious. He has to remind himself that they only barely believe alchemy is a thing, much less have any real frame of reference for what it can do. “Anyway, the Xerxes ruins are about thirty miles in that direction, which probably puts us more than 150 miles from Amestris’s borders. So, unless you want to trek more 150 miles through the desert, we should aim for the ruins.” 

“A hundred fifty miles?” JJ asks, looking stunned. 

“As much as I don’t want to hike 150 miles through the desert, what good does getting to these ruins do us?” Morgan points out. 

Ed claps to transmute a coat stand and also a lean-to for shade. JJ and Morgan both startle, but they gratefully accept the shade while Ed pulls off his jacket and hangs it up. 

Morgan blinks at him. “Was a coat rack really necessary?” he asks. 

“I’d prefer not to get sand everywhere in it,” Ed says with a shrug. He pulls off his sweater, hangs it next to the coat, then he unbuttons his longsleeve shirt, leaving him in his tanktop. 

“ _ Ed _ !” JJ gasps. 

He blinks at her. “Right,” he says, feeling stupid. Somehow, the moment he realized he was back in Amestris, eight years of neurotically protecting his automail has gone straight out the window. “Uh, there’s a reason I didn’t let you see the shoulder connection.”

“Is that  _ bolted _ into your chest?” she demands, aghast. 

“Well, yeah. It kind of has to be. It’s heavy and has to be anchored or it could get yanked out,” he explains. “Though these carbon fiber composites are a lot lighter than my original steel ones.” He then turns to the shirts and claps, reconstructing them, grateful that he never developed a taste for artificial textiles. Organics are mostly carbon when you boil them down, and that’s a piece of cake for Ed to work with. He hands the two scarves that were his sweater to Morgan and JJ. “To cover your heads, protect your faces,” he says. 

“Is there anything you can’t do?” Morgan asks, sounding somewhere between irritated and amazed. 

“Of course there is,” Ed says dismissively. “Alchemy is a science, not magic. There are limitations on it. Equivalent exchange for one. You can’t make something out of nothing.” He can see Morgan and JJ trading skeptical looks as they wrap the scarves around their heads, but they don’t make any snarky remarks, so he ignores it. “So, do we want to start making the trek in the heat, or do we want to chill out here till the sun mostly goes down?”

JJ and Morgan trade looks. “Is it possible that we need to stay here?” Morgan asks. 

Ed frowns. “To get pulled back into your world?” he asks. Morgan nods. “No way. I mean, I can put up a column or whatever so we can get back here if we need to, but no, there’s no reason we should be geographically tied to a location. Not for this. If that were the case, I’d have expected us to land down south, which is where I was when I got pulled through to your world almost nine years ago. But Roy was in Central, which is Amestris’s capital, which is—hold for it—right in the center of Amestris. He was over a hundred miles from where I was, but when we got pulled through, we landed in the same place.”

Burying his face in his hands, Morgan hunches and kind of looks like he wants to huddle up in a corner until he wakes up and finds this has all been a terrible nightmare. 

“Why did Mustang get pulled through when you did?” JJ asks. “If you were so far apart.”

_ Right.  _ He holds up his left wrist. “Soul alchemy. I had him bind our souls together about, I dunno, four months before we got yanked through to your world.”

They’re both gaping at him again, and he really wishes they’d stop doing that, but, well, he remembers how his and Roy’s heads spun when they encountered all the insane tech in their world, so he figures finding out about alchemy and what it can do is probably about equivalent. 

“I—You—But—” In other circumstances, watching Morgan trying to decide what to say, cutting himself off, and restarting again would be funny. Okay, even in these circumstances, Ed can’t help but be a little bit amused. 

“Spit it out,” Ed baits, sticking his hands in his pockets. 

Morgan drags his hands down his face. “I don’t even know where to begin.”

“Let it percolate for a while,” Ed suggests, turning back to JJ. “Something to add?”

“You had Mustang bind your souls together?” she asks, eyes hard. “Why did you have  _ him _ do that?”

He really should have realized that she would jump to the conclusion that Roy manipulated him into allowing it. Beyond tired of this discussion, he says, “I couldn’t, at the time. Some stuff happened and I couldn’t do alchemy anymore. But Roy doesn’t know shit about soul alchemy. I designed the array and had to walk him through it.” 

“You were… seventeen? What rational thirty-one-year-old man ties his  _ soul _ to a seventeen-year-old?” Morgan demands. 

Rolling his eyes, Ed stares up at the ceiling of their lean-to. “Look, I know you’re trying to compartmentalize and focusing on my relationship with Roy instead of focusing on the fact that you’re in another world that has something that appears, from your perspective, to be magic, is a lot easier to handle. But knock it off. I’m done having this conversation. There’s a lot of shit you don’t know about and can’t understand, and it made sense for  _ both of us _ to want to be able to keep tabs on one another’s well-being.” He looks at them again, and they both look absolutely miserable. “No one who knew us both did more than raise eyebrows when we got together. Think about that, okay? Not my teacher, not her husband, not Roy’s second-in-command, not his team, not my  _ brother _ . Hell, even Olivier didn’t make a stink when I had to transfer to her command ‘cause of frat regs.”

JJ has gone startlingly pale considering how hot it is out here. “Frat regs?” she asks. 

Ed tracks back his words and promptly realizes he’s a fucking  _ moron _ . Where the  _ fuck  _ is his brain? Did getting dropped back into Amestris just  _ fry _ all of his common sense? Eight years of hiding his past with these people and the moment they land in Amestris, he becomes a fucking  _ sieve _ ? 

Well, the moment they hit civilization, they’re going to find out anyway. He’s simply  _ way _ too high profile for them not to. It’s probably best to get them through the shock before they’re surrounded. Honestly, even telling them now is probably not going to prepare them for the reality of who Ed is. 

“I’m… kinda famous here,” he starts, trying to figure out how to explain  _ child soldier  _ without sending them into absolute meltdown mode. 

“How famous? Exactly?” Morgan asks, crossing his arms. “And for what?”

It’s so tempting to hedge or mislead, but it’s going to go to hell the minute they meet anyone who knows  _ of _ him, and he’s going to have to lean on people knowing of him to get anything done. “The Amestris State Military has a special program to recruit alchemists. If you pass the tests, you become a State Alchemist. It’s a prestige position, basically comes with a military commission, a big-ass budget and paycheck, and, of course, status.”

“And how young were you, when you got this position?” JJ asks, voice a little faint. 

There is really no way to pull this punch. “Twelve. The youngest in Amestris history.”

“I need to sit down,” JJ says, legs folding under her and sinking to the ground in what Ed can call a controlled fall, but only barely. 

“That’s how you met Mustang, isn’t it?” Morgan asks while JJ buries her face in her hands. “Joining the military?”

It would be so easy to lie. The fact that Roy effectively recruited him might never come up. But if it  _ did _ …

His hesitation must have been obvious on his face, because Morgan shoulders tense and he says, “That’s not how you met, is it?”

Ed rubs the back of his neck with his flesh hand. “No,” he admits. “Roy heard about me and my brother and came to talk to us about joining the military.” He sees the horror on their faces and rushes to assure them, “Rumors said we were like, thirty, or something! He was appalled when he realized we were just kids.”

“But he recruited you anyway.”

“Well, I’d just committed the crime of human transmutation and lived through it, so to be  _ fair _ , he could have just had me arrested. Human transmutation officially carries a death sentence.” He shrugs, ignoring the wide-eyed fish impressions they’re giving him. “Instead, he told me to come see him when I recovered. And in his defense, the usual timeline for recovering from automail surgery is three years, and I hadn’t even had the surgery yet when he found me. He didn’t expect me to show up in Central for the test a year later.” 

“ _ Death sentence _ ?” JJ says, voice faint. 

“Well,  _ technically _ ,” Ed says. “But like, 80% of attempted human transmutations kill the alchemist in the rebound, and even the ones that survive, well, generally those of us who do survive pay enough of a price for it, the military isn’t real eager to finish the job.” He knocks his arm on his leg to make the point. He is not getting into the whole  _ needing alchemists who have committed the taboo to sacrifice to a nation-wide array _ thing. Depending on who they run into here, that whole debacle  _ could  _ come up, but Ed’s not going to go there if he can avoid it. They’re looking dangerously shocky as it is. 

It reminds Ed that their standards of fucked-up shit are still very  _ human _ based. Not that he isn’t enraged or furious about the shit he sees working for the BAU, but compared to the kind of shit he’s seen, it’s just never been… quite the same magnitude of fucked-up. It hasn’t given him the same kinds of nightmares. It feels terrible to even think it, but the psychos they deal with in the BAU are, honestly, mundane in comparison. Even the really  _ creative _ ones.

Considering how these veterans of human terribleness still sometimes react, Ed isn’t eager to add to their nightmares. 

“What is this? A military dictatorship?” Morgan asks, sounding more like himself. 

_ Right _ . “Yeah,” Ed says, “That’s exactly what it is.”

No way is he going to sit in here, playing Twenty Questions with Shocked and Horrified until sundown. Ed claps, taking a heartbeat to fix the array he wants in his mind, then puts up a column, dismantles their lean-to back down to sand, and stretches to put markers up in a straight line toward Xerxes for as far as he can sense. He’s not entirely sure how far they go, but when he stands back up, he can’t see where they end, and the waist-height poles are in a dead-straight line running toward the ruined city. He takes his own modified shirt and pulls the new poncho-like construction over his head, pulling up the hood to shield his face, then picks his two full water bottles back up. 

“C’mon,” he says, calling over his shoulder as he begins walking along his line of poles. “I can tap into the groundwater, but I can’t make food out of nothing. Last time I came through Xerxes, there were refugees there at least.” His boots are real leather, but they’re real leather from the other world, which means they’re processed to high hell, so he would prefer to go hungry for a bit than try to stew them the way he had to in Gluttony’s stomach. 

Ed is definitely okay with never having to eat blood-stewed leather ever again. He’s pretty sure that Morgan and JJ would have to be a  _ lot _ more desperate than he was to even consider stewing his boots. It’s probably a sign of how soft he’s gotten in the US that the prospect of stewing and eating his boots is less unappealing than the prospect of stomping through this desert without a shoe. Blood is one thing,  _ sand _ is something else entirely. It could take him fucking  _ weeks _ to get it out of his automail. Especially because he wouldn’t have to stew the leather in blood this time. He could just use water, and not water transmuted from blood. Even if he knows he transmuted every molecule that was H or O out of it, the blood-water still had that copper tang. Not inedible, but hardly appetizing.

...Not that the leather was either. 

When was the last time he ate? He’s only been in the desert for, what, half an hour, and he’s contemplating eating his shoes? They’re fifty miles from Xerxes at the absolute  _ worst _ , and he doubts it’s half that. Once upon a time he wouldn’t have thought anything of hiking twenty-plus miles on foot. 

Fuck, he’s gone soft. Al is going to laugh his ass off at him, and rightfully so.

The thought of getting to see Al again— _ he’s alive, he still has a body, Truth couldn’t have taken him again, he will be there! _ —perks him up a little. 

.o0o.o0o.o0o.

__

Most of the time, Heinkel is pleased with his and Darius’s decisions to leave the military and attach themselves to the other Elric brother after the Lieutenant Colonel went missing. Life isn’t necessarily less eventful, it’s just a different  _ kind _ of eventful. Heinkel long ago accepted that the Elrics are simply magnets for weird shit. At least Alphonse’s type of weird tends to be less violent. 

What they maybe  _ didn’t  _ expect was that attaching themselves to Alphonse would mean attaching themselves to a Xing princess. Not that they don’t like Mei, but she is like a scary combination of both the Lieutenant Colonel and Alphonse. Upon first meeting, she seems more like Alphonse: calm, competent, polite. That dainty frame hides a martial artist he thinks would give the Colonel a run for his money at his best. She also has a temper. 

Having met the women in the Elrics’ lives—Mrs. Curtis, Miss Rockbell—Heinkel supposes he shouldn’t be surprised. 

But protecting Alphonse these days means extending that protection to his fiancee, so he’s trekking through the desert on her heels in the heat of the day to track down whatever “disturbance” there was in the Dragon’s Pulse. Of course she didn’t want a military escort, or an escort of any sort. She grudgingly accepted Heinkel’s company only because Alphonse guilted her into it. Heinkel got to come because his lion is better adapted to the desert than Darius’s gorilla. Even after nearly a decade of familiarity, Heinkel still finds Alphonse’s people-manipulating skills frightening at times. He much prefers the Lieutenant Colonel’s directness, though he’d been getting a little more shrewd before he disappeared. Heinkel blamed General Mustang’s influence. 

The sun must have him in a maudlin mood. The Lieutenant Colonel’s absence is still felt, but not usually quite so present. Maybe it’s just the birth of Mei and Alphonse’s daughter that’s made his absence so noticeable recently. 

Not that you’d be able to tell Mei is only six months removed from childbirth…

Blue-white static arches from the ground, making Mei and Heinkel jump back from it. Waist-high poles rise in a straight line before them, spaced evenly about every ten feet until they disappear behind them. 

Heinkel and Mei exchange glances. There’s no one visible on the horizon, and the only alchemists that Heinkel can think of who have that kind of range are Alphonse, Mrs. Curtis, and…

The wind shifts, bringing the scent of people on it. “There are three people up ahead,” he informs Mei. “A woman and two men. One is…” he trails off, because he  _ knows _ that scent. It’s tickling at the back of memory, changed and not quite right anymore, but familiar. Maybe he wouldn’t have recognized it so quickly if the Lieutenant Colonel hadn’t been so top of mind, but he could almost swear…

Mei is a mindreader—he doesn’t care how much she protests—so she asks, “Who is it?”

Heinkel shifts to his chimera form to better pick up the scent, and he’s  _ almost _ sure… but it couldn’t be, could it?

“Heinkel,” Mei says, and it is not a request. At her side, Xiao-Mei has scented the wind and is growling as well, every bit as suspicious as Heinkel is. 

“Let’s go,” he says. “I don’t want to say anything, in case I’m wrong.”

Mei narrows her eyes at him, looking between Heinkel and Xiao-Mei suspiciously, before eyeing the poles in the sand. 

“All right then,” she says, and Heinkel already knows she’s going to make him regret this. “Let’s continue on, shall we?” She holds out a hand to suggest he goes first. 

As if he intended to do otherwise. He shoots a look to Xiao-Mei, who dutifully brings up the rear. He lifts his head to scent the air again as another gust brings the scent of people to him.

Electricity and tinder and oil and metal and leather, the tang of sweat, and something beneath that Heinkel’s human brain has never been able to name, but his creature brain calls  _ bright _ . 

There are only three people who have ever smelled  _ bright _ . One is dead. One is back at Xerxes. The other…

He puts his head down and makes himself walk faster, his animal brain saying _yes, yes, yes, the pride!_ _The pride leader!_ while his human brain is afraid to hope. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So--is this who you expected them to meet first?
> 
> Things are going to start getting interesting soon. There will not be a Christmas posting (Sorry!! I ran out of time!) but there is a new little short in the series called "Hard Decisions" if you missed it. Have a happy and safe holiday! Normal schedule next week!


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Are you sure there’s nothing dangerous in this desert?”

They’ve been walking for hours according to JJ’s phone, and Ed just keeps plowing forward like he’s a machine. She and Derek are no slouches, but Ed striding through this like it’s an inconvenience instead of sapping his energy with every additional step is making her feel like she’s woefully out of shape. Ed has already stopped twice to refill their water and take a break, but it’s clearly been for  _ their _ benefit, not for his. She knows he’s still young, but this is ridiculous. 

Ed stops at the base of yet  _ another _ dune—the poles he magically created running straight over it. JJ can’t help it, she groans at the thought of climbing that dune. Derek turns and offers her a commiserating grimace. It’s a relief that he’s hating this as much as JJ is. 

“Why don’t we take another break?” Derek suggests as they stop where Ed is. 

He glances at them, glances up at the dune, then shrugs. He claps—JJ is going to hear that sound in her nightmares, she’s sure—then crouches to put his hands to the sand. JJ can’t decide if she should just get used to Ed doing miracles or if she never wants to take for granted that he can just carve a literal  _ hallway _ out of a dune so they can go  _ through it  _ instead of  _ over it _ . 

“Is there something you’re not telling us about this desert that you’re in such a hurry to get out of it?” JJ asks, managing not to bend over and brace her hands on her knees by sheer force of will. 

Ed raises a sardonic eyebrow. “Other than it’s a fucking huge desert hundreds of miles from civilization, and we might not die of  _ thirst _ with me, but you can sure as shit  _ starve _ . I don’t know about you, but my stomach kind of wants to eat me from the inside out, so the sooner we get to the ruins, the better,” he says. 

A huge shadow passes by the end of the hall Ed made. 

“Are you sure there’s nothing dangerous in this desert?” JJ asks. 

Ed must have caught it out of the corner of his eye too because he’s tense and dropped into a ready stance. He claps his hands softly, then puts one hand on his metal arm, transforming it into a blade, which reminds her that she had his gun, and somewhere between the barn and here, she’s lost it. But she and Derek both pull their guns, putting their backs to one another. 

“There!” Derek calls, letting off a shot at a huge shadow above the dune. Whatever it is, it does not like being shot at, and it  _ roars _ . 

“Is that a  _ lion _ ?” JJ asks, feeling her heart sink as the shadow starts moving down toward them. 

A clap echoes across the desert, and Ed kneels, slamming his hands onto the sand. The ground underneath her and Derek starts to move, an elaborate cage raising around them. A hand reaches out of the dune and tries to grab the lion-thing—it can’t be a lion because even for a lion, it’s too big, and it’s definitely not moving right—but the lion-thing dodges.

Ed doesn’t stay still, taking off running. He claps again, this time doing a series of flips, each time his hands touch the sand, something appears out of the sand—towers, hands, a cage—but the lion-thing is fast and agile, and it must be intelligent, because before too long, Ed’s metal arm is the only thing holding off that creature. 

And it is a creature—some twisted amalgam of a man and a lion, and it would dwarf Derek. Next to Ed, it looks like a giant. 

JJ doesn’t realize she’s fired until Ed yells, “Don’t shoot!” ducking under the lion-man, making her miss. He dodges underneath, and comes up behind him, then snarls, “Chill the fuck out, you overgrown housecat!” And Ed  _ literally _ kicks the lion-man in the ass, with his metal leg, if she’s not mistaken. Before the lion-man can recover, Ed has clapped and hit the ground again, and this time, the hand that appears doesn’t miss. “For fuck’s sake, Heinkel! Do you really not recognize me?”

“Edward?” a woman’s voice calls. JJ looks up to see a young woman standing at the top of the dune, a  _ panda _ at her side, of all things. 

Confusion crosses Ed’s features, but he asks, “Mei?” 

She’s slim and clothed in what appear to be fine silks, but she dashes down the dune, the panda keeping pace with her. 

“Mei! Stay back! It can’t be the colonel!” the lion-man yells, and if JJ was confused and frightened before, hearing a man’s voice come from that creature’s mouth somehow makes it even  _ worse _ . 

“Fucking hell,” Ed says, and he looks exasperated, dragging a hand over his face. 

His moment of inattention is a mistake because although the woman has stopped, the panda doesn’t and bowls into Ed, clamping down large jaws on Ed’s metal shoulder. 

“ _ Ed! _ ” JJ and Derek both yell, guns raising. 

“Get the fuck off me!” Ed snarls, managing to get his foot under the panda and kick it off. 

“Xiao-Mei!” the girl calls. 

“ _ That’s _ Xiao-Mei?” Ed gapes. “What happened to the nasty little kitten thing that Al loved?” 

The panda is back up on its feet, protectively in front of the young woman, but she has her hands over her mouth and looks like she might cry. 

“Colonel?” the lion-man asks hesitantly. His voice is gruff and rumbly, but it carries a note of what sounds like cautious hope. “But you… have alchemy…”

Ed glances down at him, keeping an eye on the woman and the panda this time. “Yeah,” he says. “Apparently if you get pulled through the gate, it kind of has to give you it back.”

It means  _ nothing _ to JJ, but it must mean something to the two people, because they  _ both  _ start crying, and the girl flings herself at Ed. She’s smaller than he is, slight, and he catches her easily. 

“It’s really you?” she asks through tears.

“You’re asking me that?” he returns, a soft smile on his face. “When I last saw you, you were still a little girl.” 

“You’re still a jerk!” she announces, and Ed has to leap away to avoid a punch. They devolve into trading punches and blocks, both moving so fast JJ can’t even track it. JJ had no idea that Ed could fight like this, and seeing him do it, like he  _ expects _ to be able to, like he’s enjoying it, is starting to shake the idea she ever knew Ed at all. He finally manages to trap Mei against his chest, both of his arms crossed over her torso. 

“I missed you too, Mei,” he says, then releases her. 

Her lower lip trembles. “Jerk,” she says, but there’s no heat behind it. 

“I know,” he says. He lets her go, then claps and releases the lion-man and Derek and JJ both, rolling his metal shoulder to check it. “Your ugly cat still sucks,” he adds. 

Mei laughs, but it’s tinged with a sob. 

The lion-man sniffles and wraps his enormous arms around Ed’s shoulders. “Colonel!” 

Ed squawks as he’s all but engulfed. “Damn furball!” he protests, flailing. “Let go of me!”

“We’ve been so worried,” the lion-man says. His massive form subsides, and suddenly a blond man with distinctly European features is standing where the lion-man had been. JJ’s brain might be breaking a little bit.

“Fucking sap,” Ed says, but he looks like he’s touched too, and he’s stopped flailing. He pats the large man’s shoulder. “It’s way too fucking hot to have you all over me. Off,” he says, but not unkindly. 

JJ glances at Derek, and they both reluctantly put their guns away. 

“Colonel?” Derek asks as the big man releases Ed, and Ed claps to restore his arm to its normal form. 

“Oh, are these friends of yours?” Mei asks, rubbing under her eyes to clear the last tear remnants and straightening. 

“Right,” Ed says, apparently remembering his manners. “Derek Morgan, Jennifer Jareau, this is Mei Chang, Heinkel, and the panda’s Xiao-Mei. Guys, Morgan and JJ. They’re, uh, on my team from where I’ve been.”

Mei bows regally, and JJ suddenly realizes there’s a poise and near grandeur in the way she holds herself. “I’m Mei Chang,” she introduces herself formally. “Princess of Xing, ambassador to Amestris.”

Ed’s eyebrow raises and he whistles. “Coming up in the world there,” he says. 

“Master Alphonse is also a Xing ambassador,” she says, turning her attention back to Ed. “He’s going to be so happy to see you!”

“Al’s okay? And he’s here?” he asks, something desperate coming into his eyes. 

“He was just fine when I left,” Mei says, taken aback by Ed’s obvious concern. 

Ed puts his hand over his heart and lets out a deep sigh of relief. “Thank goodness,” he says. “But wait, what are you guys doing out in nowheresville?”

“Xerxes is being rebuilt as a waystation between Xing and Amestris,” Mei explains, sounding pleased. “As part of the diplomatic pact between Xing and Amestris, Xerxes’s governance is being given to the Ishvallans as a neutral third party.”

That means nothing to JJ, but Mei looks smug about it, and Ed lights up in delight. “How the fuck did anyone manage to wrangle  _ that _ out of the Fuhrer?” 

“The Emperor insisted that restitution to the Ishvallans be included in order for diplomatic relations to open up. It’s been a difficult negotiation, but our people are eager to have a route between Xing and Amestris, so we finally got it through about a year ago.” Her enthusiasm dims a little. “I think it would have gone through much sooner if General Mustang had been able to help.”

Ed puts a hand on her shoulder. “It’s happening now, that’s all that matters,” he says. “Roy will be ecstatic when he finds out, I’m sure.”

JJ has seen this happen before, seen people respond to Ed’s encouragement like the sun has come to settle on them, but it always catches her a little off guard when it happens. Seeing Mei straighten and a soft pride infuse her eyes at the simple assurance is startling. “Where is the general?”

Ed’s own brow furrows, and his own happiness dims. “I think he’s still in JJ and Morgan’s world,” he says. “Where we’ve been for the last eight years.” A fierce determination fills his eyes. “But I’ll find a way to bring him back.” 

She gives him a small smile and a nod, and JJ isn’t sure if her easy acceptance of Ed’s ability is reassuring or unnerving. “Come on. We’re only about ten miles from Xerxes. I’m sure you must all be starving,” she says to them, then turns and leads the way through Ed’s tunnel. 

JJ has so many questions, she has no idea where to start, but when Derek says, “Colonel?” in a questioning tone toward Heinkel, who has pulled glasses out of his pocket and settled them on his face, she follows up with, “General?”

Heinkel eyes them, curious but cautious. “I reported to the lieutenant colonel before he disappeared eight years ago,” he says. “We reported up through General Olivier Armstrong of the Amestris State Military. Before his promotion and transfer, the colonel reported up through Brigadier General Roy Mustang.”

“Ed’s a  _ lieutenant colonel _ ?” JJ asks. “He was seventeen…” she trails off, not able to make the words  _ when he came to our world _ come out of her throat. It’s too surreal.

“State Alchemists are automatically conferred a rank equivalent to major,” he explains. 

“Ed said he was  _ twelve _ when he joined the military,” JJ says because there has to have been something lost in translation somehow. 

“Yes,” Heinkel says simply. “And he was promoted to lieutenant colonel when he was seventeen.” He’s still looking at them like he’s not sure he trusts them, but he adds, “We shouldn’t let them get too far ahead.” He starts forward again. 

“Your name is Heinkel, right?" she asks, wanting to ask about the lion thing but sure she shouldn't. "So Ed was your boss?” She has to jog to catch up to his long strides. 

He gives her a sidelong glance. “Yes.”

“Are you still with the military?”

“No.”

“Because you were reporting to Ed?” Derek follows up her train of thought. 

Heinkel pauses to roll his eyes, then gives them his full attention. “I stayed with the military because of Lieutenant Colonel Elric. When he and General Mustang went missing, I opted out.”

JJ trades a look with Derek, then asks, “You stayed because of Ed? Or was it Mustang?”

This time, when Heinkel speaks, he meets her eyes. “General Mustang is a good man with good intentions, but he is a politician at heart. I would never stay for a politician.”

“So you stayed for Ed,” Derek says, stating the obvious conclusion. Heinkel inclines his head gravely. “Why?”

For a moment, she thinks he’s not going to answer. Just as JJ opens her mouth to ask another question, Heinkel says, “I owe Edward Elric debts I cannot repay.” He looks away from them, gazing at Ed’s figure, as he stops and turns.

“Why are you lazing around back there? There’s  _ food _ at Xerxes!” Ed calls back. 

“He was seventeen,” Derek repeats. “He was just a kid.”

Heinkel shakes his head. “I don’t think Edward Elric has ever been  _ just _ anything.”

Without saying anything further, he hurries after Ed and Mei.

JJ stands next to Derek a moment and he sighs. “Do you feel like you’ve missed something?” he asks. “I mean, we’ve worked with Ed for nearly three years, and I just… I don’t know that I understand.”

“I think I’m starting to,” JJ says, memories of odd times, of little moments, of instances where Ed did something she didn’t expect, seemed wiser than she thought he should be, starting to come together. It had been a subtlety she had missed—Ed’s wisdom. Used to Spencer’s intelligence and wisdom, she had forgotten that he’d not always been wise, that Ed should be so wise so young. Why were things always so obvious in hindsight? “Let’s catch up. I don’t know about you, but I’m starving and it sounds like we’ve got another ten miles.” 

Derek sighs, but matches her pace to catch up to the others. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It feels a lot longer than a week. Hope you all had a wonderful holiday!


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Tell me, Supervisory Special Agent Prentiss,” Mustang sneers. “Does it seem like I’m telling stories now?”

“Crawford said that there was a fuse box here, right?” Prentiss asks. 

“It was over this way,” Hughes volunteers, using Dave’s flashlight to make his way to where the fuse box is. A moment later, the lights come up. 

The scene is just as eerie without the dismembered body and just a lot of blood where he was. But Dave doesn’t really care about the scene—he cares about Mustang’s reaction to it. 

Right off the bat, his posture is different than the last time she met him. He holds himself like a military man, like  _ he’s  _ the one in charge of the scene, and it’s clear he doesn’t realize he’s doing it. At least it jives with his claim of being a general. 

His eyes move over the circle on the floor critically, not terribly unlike Reid would analyze a map. He obviously knows what he’s looking at, even if it’s only clear to him. His eyes barely pause on the giant pool of blood on the floor. 

“A dozen victims?” Mustang asks, still focused on the circle.

“Plus our three agents,” Prentiss reminds. 

“The array is only built to accept twelve victims,” Mustang says as if it’s plainly self-evident. “Your agents weren’t accounted for in the calculations.” He lifts his head and looks at Hughes, who looks grim but not nearly as upset as a civilian should. “Is there  _ anything else _ you remember? Anything at all?”

Hughes props his chin on his hand for a moment, thinking. “Hands? I think. Black arms?”

“And disembodied eyes?” 

Hughes winces but nods, even as he shudders. 

“Disembodied hands and arms?” Rossi asks. “Like Tucker Maes’s?”

Mustang snorts. “No. Not even a little bit. But your agents should have been safe from this unless they interacted with it. You can see just by looking around that not much of the barn appears disturbed. Would they have approached it?”

“Ed told us not to,” Dave says. “But in the heat of the moment…” He shrugs. “JJ and Morgan may have simply forgotten.”

“Or not taken the warning seriously in the first place,” Mustang says with obvious disgust. He goes to the edge and rubs out a line. 

“Hey!” Prentiss snaps. 

“This array was still complete. Alchemy is still active in this world. Think of an array like a computer program. All it needs is someone to hit  _ enter _ to start it again. By erasing part of the array, you break the part of the code that can activate it.” He looks up. “What  _ exactly _ did Ed tell you about the other array?”

“He gave us the profile and told us not to touch any intact circles or anyone touching them,” Dave says. “The profile was thorough and, I think, quite accurate. But he didn’t explain why we needed to stay out of the circle.”

“Probably because if he said ‘it might pull you apart at the atomic level,’ I doubt you would have believed him,” Mustang says, crouching to get a better look at part of the array. 

Dave sighs and catches Reid looking at Hughes contemplatively. “Something nagging, Reid?” he asks. 

Reid shakes himself. “I just… don’t understand why you had…” he hesitates, as if trying to decide what nomenclature to apply, then continues with, “Mr. Hughes strip down.”

“Yeah, Roy,” Hughes says, sounding amused. “Why the burning need to see me in my altogether?”

“And you called him a ‘homunculus.’ And I don’t think you know what that word means,” Reid continued. 

“ _ I _ don’t know what that word means,” Prentiss says, her irritation at all of this in her voice. 

“It can mean a little man, manikin, or there’s also a preformation theory that a miniature adult—”

“They were artificial humans,” Mustang interrupts him, enough venom in his voice to set off serious red flags for Dave. “Alchemically created artificial humans. Soulless monsters who served an even greater one.”

Under nearly any other circumstance, Dave would think Mustang is being allegorical, but he has a niggling fear that he’s not.

“What kind of monster?” Agent Seaver asks. She’s been so quiet, Dave nearly forgot she was there. 

Mustang’s head turns to her. “What?”

“What kind of monster?” she repeats calmly, expectantly. “The kind that the BAU hunt?”

A rictus grin pulls at Mustang’s lips, and if Dave had reservations about this man  _ before _ , he wouldn’t call them  _ reservations  _ any longer. Hughes looks solemn, but not surprised, so this isn’t behavior that Hughes is unfamiliar with, but it is behavior he doesn’t like. 

“The kind that you can unload a clip into and not slow them down. The kind you can drop a  _ bomb _ on and merely inconvenience. The kind that can watch you through the shadows, make the very darkness cut you to shreds. The kind that can eat you whole.” 

“The kind that can turn into the person you love most in the world while they put a bullet in your gut,” Hughes finishes coldly. 

Mustang turns to him and nods. 

“And why you had to strip Mr. Hughes?” Prentiss asks, looking unsettled. Dave can relate because he  _ feels _ unsettled. 

Turning his attention back to the circle on the floor, Mustang says, “Homunculi have an ouroboros tattoo on them. One even had one on his tongue. But Maes doesn’t. He’s not a homunculus.” 

“Are you sure about that?” Hughes himself asks, looking concerned. 

Mustang waves his concern off. “You came from the Gate itself. If there’s anything that can resurrect someone, it’s Truth.”

“Truth?” Reid asks. 

There’s a pause before Mustang answers. “I don’t know much about it,” he says, moving over to another part of the circle, breaking up more of it before he walks into it to get a closer look at some of the symbols. “Ed has had more encounters with it. I only saw it once, and it never spoke to me.”

“And what is it?” Prentiss demands, clearly tired of the half answers and evasions.

Mustang trembles, going pale, eyes going distant. When he speaks, his voice takes on a note of recitation. “An existence that we would call ‘the world,’ or perhaps ‘the universe,’ or perhaps ‘God,’ or perhaps ‘Truth,’ or perhaps ‘all,’ or perhaps ‘one.’” 

Something about the words is somehow chilling, making the hair stand on the back of Dave’s neck, and he sees a visible shudder go through most of the others. Such innocuous words should not evoke such a response. 

Mustang rubs at the palms of his hands as if recalling old pain, and lets out a long, shaky breath, which seems to bring him back to himself. “Ed calls it Truth.”

“All right,” Prentiss snaps, sounding genuinely angry. “We’re done here. Whatever game you and Elric are playing, I am done with it.”

“Game, agent?” Mustang asks.

“Your boyfriend is missing, and so are two of my other agents and a dozen other people. Whatever is going on here, your storytime is over. The pony trick was good, but I’m done listening to this nonsense. If you won’t be helpful, I’m arresting you for obstruction—”

“And you wonder why Ed wouldn’t tell you,” Mustang interrupts in a sneering, condescending tone that’s among the best Dave has encountered. “Alchemy wasn’t working, and you expected him to explain and not think he was crazy.”

“We have real monsters to deal with,” Prentiss informs, pulling her handcuffs. 

“You have  _ human _ monsters to deal with,” Mustang tells her, starting to get angry himself. “Humans who die when you shoot them. Who have physical limitations on what they can do to a person.”

“Roy…” Hughes says, and there’s a note in his voice that isn’t quite fear but is definitely concern. Rossi reaches for his gun and sees the other BAU agents do the same. There’s no rational reason to, except instinct tells him that Mustang is very, very dangerous. 

“There was no alchemy in this world!” Mustang snarls. “Yet somehow your unsub did this!” He spreads his hands out, gesturing to the circle beneath him. “And you think I’m making up  _ stories _ ?” 

He brings his hands together in a clap, then crouches down and hits the floor, blue lightning sparking from all around him, racing in arcs away from him, toward them. 

The floorboards beneath their feet come alive, pieces peeling off and becoming like giant needles. Before Dave can even quite register what is happening, the spires are blocking him in, blocking his gun, and he can’t move. When it stops, only Mustang and Hughes are left free.

“Tell me, Supervisory Special Agent Prentiss,” Mustang sneers. “Does it seem like I’m telling  _ stories _ now?”

“Roy,” Hughes’s voice seems very loud in the room, and when Dave looks at him, he’s holding a gun on Mustang. A quick accounting shows him closest to Seaver who doesn’t have her gun. “Let them go.” 

Shock is chased by betrayal, then quickly followed by resignation. Mustang hangs his head and smiles, a humorless grin, as if he should have expected no better. 

“Perhaps I haven’t changed so much,” Mustang says, rueful, but the temper seems to have gone out of him.

“Hawkeye isn’t here to stand between you and yourself,” Hughes says, voice steady even in the face of holding a gun on his friend. 

Mustang sighs. “We can’t have you putting a bullet in me. I don’t know for sure what it would do to Ed.” He claps again, softly this time, then crouches instead of dropping. The spires sink back down into floorboards, though they look new and cleaner, there’s a strange pattern in the wood that wasn’t there before. Dave, Prentiss, and Reid all draw their weapons on Mustang as he stands, but he claps again, still soft, and puts his hands to his chest. The static flares as his clothing reconfigures itself around him until he’s wearing a blue-and-gold decorated uniform, white gloves with red embroidered circles on the back of each hand. 

Hughes has lowered his weapon, the relief plain on his face. If Dave hadn’t entirely believed that Mustang is a general, he believes it now, seeing him standing there in his uniform, completely at ease with the way its decorations sit on his shoulders. 

“You can lower your weapons now,” Mustang says, almost amused. 

“They wouldn’t do you much good anyway,” Hughes adds, handing his weapon back to Seaver. “Nice reflexes.”

“Thank you?” she replies, looking a little bit dazed. Dave doesn’t blame her—he  _ feels  _ dazed, his adrenaline is rushing and his mind is scrambling for an explanation of what just happened. It’s coming up short. He focuses his mind on what he knows, and he knew that look in Mustang’s eyes—a killer’s eyes. 

“Has Ed seen you like that, Mr. Mustang?” Dave asks, not daring to lower his gun. 

Mustang buffs a sleeve as if clearing dust from it. “He has seen me much worse, Agent Rossi.” He glances up to meet Dave’s eyes. “And I suppose I should point out that  _ you  _ putting a bullet in me won’t be any different than  _ Maes _ doing it.”

“Hiding behind your boyfriend?”

“Agent Prentiss,” Mustang says with a longsuffering sigh. “I don’t  _ have _ to hide behind anyone. I can kill you all before you can pull those triggers if I have to. I simply feel it’s clear at this point that this is  _ not _ a game, and that what I have told you, however difficult to believe, is true. It should also be apparent that if you want to recover your missing teammates, you will likely need my help.”

“I can reproduce this circle,” Reid says. 

“I’m certain you can, Dr. Reid,” Mustang says, sounding remarkably unbothered by that. “You might even survive the attempt, though only Truth knows what it might cost you.”

“Cost?” Seaver asks.

“Human transmutation is a taboo for a reason,” Mustang says, and it’s hard to believe that he was so angry so recently. The speed with which he recovers his emotional keel is on the unnerving side. “Humans are not meant to tread in Truth’s realm. The core principle of alchemy is ‘equivalent exchange.’ I’m sure you’ve heard Ed use the phrase.”

“I have,” Dave acknowledges, reluctantly lowering his gun. 

“It’s important to remember that it is  _ equivalent  _ exchange, not  _ equal  _ exchange. Tell me, Agent Rossi.” The tone is almost conversational, as if Mustang is merely asking about what Dave thinks the weather might be. “What would you consider equivalent to a human life?”

_ “Do you seriously think I don’t know the value of a life?” _ Dave remembers Ed asking in a low growl.  _ “I know better than anyone what a life is worth—” _

“Would it be an arm and a leg?” Reid asks. He’s lowered his weapon too, but only about halfway, ready to raise it at the slightest provocation. 

Mustang tilts his head at him as if considering him. “Good guess. Just a leg though, for Ed.”

“And a tongue and eyes and ears?”

“A toll for everyone who passed through the Gate and lived, I assume,” Mustang says, feeling along his sleeve. “Maes and Tucker landed here, which leaves…”

“You think Morgan, JJ, and Ed are in your world,” Reid finishes. 

“But there’s only one gate?” Dave challenges.

Mustang rolls his eyes as if he finds Dave tiresome, and Dave has seen Ed make that exact face more times than he can count. He wonders if Ed picked it up from Mustang or if it is the other way around. “I’ve told you all I can about the Gate, I’m afraid. I don’t know that—”

“There were two,” Hughes interrupts like he just remembered. “Two doorways.”

Sighing, Mustang pinches the bridge of his nose. “I think we have to assume that the others are in Amestris.”

“Why?” Reid asks. “Assuming you’re correct and you and Ed randomly landed in our world, why wouldn’t them getting pulled through land them in a third option?”

“Because if Ed were in another world where alchemy didn’t exist, I don’t think I’d be able to sense him,” Mustang says. “I have to believe that Ed is in a world that has alchemy, and I have to trust that he  _ will _ figure out how to get everyone back where they belong.”

“That’s a lot to ask of someone who hasn’t used it, in what? The better part of a decade?” Prentiss points out. 

Mustang laughs but there’s no humor in it. “I know you know Ed is a genius, but believe me when I tell you, if you do not understand alchemy, you cannot understand  _ how much of a genius he is _ . When he got a good look at my base arrays,  _ he improved on them after about twenty minutes _ . My mentor spent most of his life devising those arrays, and he was an old man when he died. Ed was able to improve on them and use them in less than half an hour.”

“Edward can use your arrays?” Hughes all but squawked, looking disturbed. 

“He can,” Mustang says, and there’s a weight to that confirmation, a grim knowledge that Dave doesn’t understand. “He complains about it though. He says it’s a pain in the ass and he won’t use it unless he absolutely has to.” 

“I’m surprised you showed him your notes,” Hughes replies, looking disappointed.

“I didn’t. I destroyed my notes years ago. He was able to work it back from the base arrays.”

“The arrays on your gloves,” Reid says, looking like something just clicked. “You have the arrays on your gloves so you don’t have to do anything as elaborate as the human transmutation array.”

“That little circle on your glove did the floor and your clothing?” Dave asks, suspicious. From the way Mustang is talking, arrays are pretty specific, but there’s not much in common with the wooden floor and his clothing, much less the pencil holder back at the station. 

“No,” Mustang says flatly. 

“If you don’t mind my asking, Mr. Mustang, what exactly  _ is _ your area of expertise?” Dave asks. “Ed said earths weren’t your expertise. You’ve implied that this”—he motions broadly to the circle on the floor—“is also not your expertise. Mr. Hughes was surprised by what you could do with the pencil holder. So, please, enlighten us. What  _ is _ your area of expertise?” Both Mustang’s and Hughes’s expressions had been growing colder and more closed off as Dave spoke, but the answer doesn’t come from either of them. 

It comes from Reid. “It’s fire,” he says, causing both men to whip around to stare at him. “It’s the only thing that makes sense. When you argued with Ed, he said he knew fire, and you told him he didn’t. That being with you didn’t mean he knew fire. And if you specialize in fire, then it explains why you were so upset that Ed had been in one, had run into one. You know  _ exactly _ what fire can do to people. Ed even told us that you’re not  _ our _ kind of pyromaniac. But fire doesn’t spontaneously occur, you need a spark, a catalyst. I assume that’s what your gloves are for, why Mr. Hughes was so nervous when you put them on. They not only have the array, they’re your ignition source.”

Mustang’s expression has gone blank, unreadable. It is one of the best poker faces Dave had seen in a long time, so Dave supposes that Reid hit the nail on the head. 

Which is more than a little terrifying if he’s being honest. Because if Mustang specializes in fire, if he was  _ that _ upset by the prospect of Ed running into a fire, it makes sense that this man has seen people burn alive. 

Is probably responsible for burning people alive. 

Hughes sighs. “Roy, they aren’t your enemies,” he says, sounding weary. “They’re Edward’s team, right?”

Mustang’s jaw tightens, and he asks, “Do I seem so unstable to you?”

“I don’t know,” Hughes says honestly. “I haven’t seen you have mood swings like this since after Ishval.”

He takes in a deep breath, shoulders rising and falling, puts his hands together, then presses them to his chest, returning his clothing to the casual teacher’s wear he’d been dressed in before. “I’m sorry. I’ve never been separated from Ed like this, and it has me… off-kilter.”

“How did that happen, anyway?” Hughes asks, his own posture relaxing.

“You really want to have that conversation, here? Now?”

Hughes shrugs. “It’s doubtful they’re going to give us any time alone anytime soon. Might as well.”

It’s Mustang’s turn to sigh. He pauses, clearly picking his words with care. Dave is really getting tired of the secrecy. “He told me he loved me,” Mustang finally says, and Dave is nearly floored by how entirely inadequate that supposed “explanation” is.

Hughes nods as if it makes sense. “I should have known he’d be your type. Smarter than you, attractive, and doesn’t put up with your bullshit.” 

“He was  _ sixteen _ ,” Dave feels the need to point out. “What grown man accepts the confession of a sixteen-year-old?” 

Mustang and Hughes exchange a look, but they’re clearly back on the same page. Hughes scratches his head and says, “I mean, it’s legal to marry at sixteen in Amestris, and Edward may have been young, but I wouldn’t call him a child.” He bows his head, and the light reflects off his glasses, shielding his eyes. “No one who has made the decisions Edward has had to make is a child.”

“What was your cost?” Reid asks. Mustang turns to look at him. “You said that Ed’s cost was a leg, which begs the question what happened to his arm? And you’ve gone through, apparently, but there’s been no obvious cost to you.” 

The look on Hughes’s face says  _ that’s a good point _ , and he raises an eyebrow at Mustang. 

“My sight,” he says, soft and sorrowful. “My sight was taken. Ed gave up his arm to get it back.”

There’s a beat before Prentiss says, “Do you even  _ hear _ yourself? Going through some interdimensional gate? Sacrificing limbs? Exchanging an arm for sight? How does any of it even make  _ sense _ ?”

“It doesn’t,” Reid says, but he sounds like something has made sense to him. “It’s entirely arbitrary. But this power, what Ed calls Truth, it’s a god-like existence, if not what we generally call God itself.” He looks at Mustang. “You just told us that it’s  _ equivalent _ exchange not  _ equal _ exchange. If Ed has had face-to-face dealings with a fickle, arbitrary, god-like entity, it’s no wonder he’s so virulently anti-religion. It explains why he’s so contemptuous of the idea of a benevolent God. But why his  _ right arm _ ? Your sight makes sense—I imagine being blind would render your ability to do alchemy effectively almost moot. Why Ed’s arm?”

Hughes whistles. “Edward certainly works with a bright team,” he comments, sounding both amused and impressed. 

“That he does,” Mustang agrees, but where Hughes is amused, Mustang is grim and annoyed. He doesn’t appreciate Reid pulling him apart so easily. This isn’t a man used to being transparent. “It’s complicated, and it’s not my story to tell. I didn’t ask him to, if that’s what you want to know. I would never have asked him to. If he’d asked my opinion on it, I’d have told him it wasn’t worth it. He didn’t, so my sight was restored and he lost his arm again.”

“Again?” Dave asks, prodding.

It gets him a cold glare from Mustang, who is clearly past being done with the interrogation. “Since Tucker is dead, you need to focus on finding whoever taught him this. I assure you, alchemy isn’t something you can just pick up from books—”

Hughes coughs.

“—Unless you’re a true genius,” he continues as if he intended that qualifier from the beginning. “Tucker wasn’t. Even if he  _ were _ that kind of brilliant, Ed and I looked. We didn’t find any resources in this world that contain anything even  _ close _ to our alchemy, and believe me, we looked.” 

“We have a dozen people missing—” Prentiss begins. 

“They’re dead,” Mustang interrupts. “You should focus on finding Tucker’s mentor.”

Reid puts his gun away. “And how do you know that Tucker didn’t just somehow tap into your world?” he asks. “You seem to know him, know who he was, but there’s no reason your paths would have crossed here. Which means your familiarity is from your world. Is he another double, like Mr. Hughes?”

Mustang’s eyes narrow. “He is. I saw his work, and he didn’t have this knowledge. He didn’t get here on his own or through some parallel world bleed-through. He had help.”

“He may even be close by,” Hughes says in a musing tone. “Someone who knew enough of human transmutation to be unwilling to take the risk and incur the toll themselves but was happy to teach someone else?”

Dave feels stupid for a moment. “They’ll want to know if it worked. And they would only know—”

“If they were close by,” Prentiss finishes, sounding as annoyed with herself as he is with himself. 

“The locals are already stretched thin, and with the storm and the hour, going door-to-door just isn’t going to be effective,” Reid says.

Prentiss sighs, rubbing her forehead. “We’ll have Garcia start pulling records of anyone she can. We’re going to have to canvas any she can’t pull, ourselves.” 

“As much as I would like to pursue this, I think we could all use some rest,” Mustang says with surprising tact. 

“He’s right,” Dave says. “If Mustang is right and the senior citizens are indeed dead, with Tucker Maes dead, there’s not much more we can do tonight. If we believe Mustang’s theory, then JJ, Morgan, and Ed are beyond our reach as well.”

“But how will it look if we just  _ stop _ looking?” Prentiss asks. 

“The storm, terrain, and nightfall have made searching impossible at this time,” Reid says. “We can go back to the station and take shifts going through the data we have, trying to figure out where Tucker Maes may have met his mentor and to figure out who that mentor is.”

Wheels are turning in Hughes’s head, so Dave asks, “Something to share?”

“It’s just that… Roy, you said Edward got pulled through this world dealing with a rogue alchemist. Maybe that alchemist got pulled through too? I can’t imagine Edward not being able to wrest control of an array from someone else.”

Mustang looks thoughtful. “It’s not impossible. Maybe the only reason Ed and I landed in the same place is because of our bond. We never found any sign of anyone else coming through, but we didn’t really know what to look for, and even now, neither of us are particularly proficient at that sort of research in a computer… Perhaps your Ms. Garcia can assist?”

“Station first,” Prentiss says with finality. “We need to set up a schedule, and I don’t know about anyone else, but I need coffee.”

It was a sentiment they all agreed on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the record--I actually have a note in my doc on this chapter where the summary quote is, that says "break here?" It'd have been _such_ a good cliffhanger. I resisted (mostly because the chapter was too short if I broke it there, so you get a 4k chapter instead). I'm sure you're all very upset with me. XD


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “How does the child fare?”

Scar looks up, shielding his eyes from the harsh setting sun. Xerxes still has a long way to go, but he feels like rarely more than a few days pass without him appreciating the progress that has been made. A part of him still wonders if it’s not a little sacrilegious to come into these ancient ruins and rebuild, but at least they have the blessing of the last person who can give it to do so. He turns to greet Alphonse.

“How does the child fare?” he asks.

Alphonse smiles at him, amused as usual, but never in a way that is mean or petty. Never mocking. It’s almost as if each time he is asked, he is reminded anew of his family’s inclusion, their welcome, is reassured that they belong. Knowing Alphonse, perhaps he is. “The child is well,” he returns in Ishvalan that seems to get better by the day, then adds, “Being horribly spoiled by all the extended relatives who can get their hands on her.”

“And the child’s mother?” Scar inquires, observing the ritual. 

Amber eyes sparkling, Alphonse says, “Still off tracking down whatever disturbance she felt in the Dragon’s Pulse, I expect. But she is well, all the same.” There is no insecurity in the response, no unease in the fact that his wife—they are the parents of a First Child, in Ishvala’s eyes, they are wed, regardless of their own customs—has gone traipsing off into the desert with nothing but a chimera for protection. His security makes him worthy of her. 

“And the child’s father?” Scar finishes.

Somehow, Alphonse’s grin gets even bigger. “I have been informed that we are in need of an extra pair of hands for dinner prep tonight, since most of the usual suspects are preparing for tomorrow’s feast. You have _ been to be made to be volunteer. _ ”

Scar blinks up at him while he tries to process the strange phrasing Alphonse just used. “Volunteered?” he asks in Amestrian. 

“No,” Alphonse replies in kind. “I meant ‘voluntold.’ Where you are told you volunteered. Sorry, I was trying to work out an equivalent way to say it in Ishvalan, but since ‘volunteer’ is only a noun, not a verb, it didn’t work so well.”

“Voluntold,” Scar repeats, raising an eyebrow. “That sounds like a word your brother would use.”

Alphonse’s smile doesn’t dim in the least at the mention of his missing brother—he actually hates it when people try to talk around Edward as if he’s dead—”I believe he learned it from the General.”

_ That _ , Scar would believe. “I imagine he was…  _ voluntold  _ often in his career.” Ten years since the Promised Day, and he still struggles with reconciling the monster he believed Mustang to be and the man he might actually be. He’s not sure if Mustang’s prolonged absence has made it harder or easier to adjust his opinion of the man. Fortunately, most of the Amestrians are willing to let him simply ignore the man’s existence—even if he had tied himself irrevocably to Edward. He still did not approve of that act of alchemy, but he was not in a position then to comment. He doubts that even with their potential change in relationship, Edward would appreciate the criticism regardless. 

“Often,” Al says with that particular tone he gets when he finds his brother’s longsuffering amusing. 

Scar sends a silent prayer to Ishvala for Edward Elric’s safety, and reluctantly includes General Mustang in it, if only for Edward’s sake. Knowing how Edward would feel about someone praying for him does not make him less inclined to do so. Nehan comes to take the shovel he was using without a word while Scar follows Alphonse to the prep area. 

“What do you need me to do?” he asks.

“Honestly, mostly stir,” Alphonse says, motioning to the massive stew pot that holds what has become a staple in their diet. Adiayah, a woman some ten years older than Scar but not yet stooped with age, gratefully hands over stirring duties. 

She pats Scar on the shoulder, her ring chiming softly against his automail arm. “That’s a good lad,” she says, as if she’s his grandmother instead of someone young enough to be his sister. 

He doesn’t sigh, but he does give her a side-eyed look as she bustles over to help Al prep. The stew is thick, already, so it’s not surprising she’s tired of stirring it, and his arm won’t get as tired as hers will.

“Are you excited for the feast tomorrow?” Adiayah asks Alphonse. 

“I’m very much looking forward to it,” he tells her with effusive sincerity. “Though I’m sorry to be such a bother. I really wish you’d let us help more.”

Adiayah tuts at him. “None of that. You have your whole lives to provide for her. For this, you let family take care of,” she tells him, putting a hand on his arm as well. “Why don’t you go spend time with everyone. Let Ktschinya—” She nods to him, using the Ishvalan word for  _ scar _ . “—and I take care of the stew for tonight.”

Alphonse scratches the back of his neck. “Actually, a little bit of breathing space is kind of nice,” he admits. Scar doesn’t blame him. In his experience, few people attached to either Alphonse or Mei are shy, quiet, or short on personality, and the thought of being confined with them all under one roof—albeit a large one, since they are using some of the palace ruins as a make-shift inn—is still a lot. 

“Everyone is so looking forward to tomorrow,” Adiayah says.

“We are too,” Alphonse agrees, though a touch of sadness enters his eyes for the first time. “It’d be perfect except…”

_ Except Edward won’t be there _ , Scar thinks but doesn’t say. Neither does Adiayah. She simply gives him work to keep his hands and mind busy. 

They’ve only been working about fifteen minutes when the first hints of a commotion make their way to their ears. 

“Alphonse!” Ruutan, a young man of sixteen, sticks his head around the corner, breathless, an emotion that Scar can’t name on his face. “Miss Mei is back!”

They all blink at Ruutan because as much as Mei is loved, she doesn’t warrant this kind of a reception. 

Ruutan grins widely. “You’ll want to come see her. Trust me!”

Before he can dash off, Scar snaps. “What is it?”

Shaking his head, Ruutan says, “You wouldn’t believe me. Just come!”

Alphonse’s brow furrows, and he exchanges a look with both Adiayah and Scar. 

“Oh, go,” Adiayah tells him. “We can manage this without you.”

He inclines his head but smiles. “I can’t thank you—”

“Yes, yes,” Adiayah interrupts, not letting him finish the ritual phrase. “Your help has been most appreciated, now shoo! Before Ruutan vibrates out of his skin.”

Alphonse bows slightly—probably to be cheeky—then scurries toward Ruutan before Adiayah can decide to see how well his wife can heal him if she stabs him a little bit. 

When he disappears behind Ruutan, she shakes her head, both fond and exasperated. 

“What do you think that was about?” Scar asks. 

She shrugs, going back to prepping her vegetables. “I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough. Probably just another long lost extended family member,” she says, but she’s smiling. Mei and Alphonse are well-loved in Xerxes and by his people. No one has been disappointed by the number of people who have decided to trek out to the middle of a desert construction zone to celebrate their daughter’s sixth month, even if it has made for a few uneasy exchanges. His people trust Mei and Alphonse, and trust that they wouldn’t associate with anyone intent on holding a grudge. She glances up. “Keep stirring! Do you want that stew to burn?”

Scar hurriedly starts stirring again. He doesn’t want her to decide to stab him  _ just a little bit _ , either. 

.o0o.o0o.o0o.

JJ’s head is spinning when they get to the edge of the ruins. The desert, the lion-man, the far too intelligent panda, Ed’s  _ magic _ ? Then this city rising up out of the desert? Like some strange fantasy setting? She swears she has some lecture rattling around in her head from Spencer about how people don’t just randomly decide to set up shop in the middle of deserts—there are no resources, nothing to sustain them, people don’t actually  _ do _ that…

Except here they clearly  _ have _ . And it’s not just the city ruins themselves—and for all that there’s plenty of new construction going on, these are  _ ruins _ —ruins that are not of the type she expects to see in the desert, her brain associating “desert” with “Egypt.” These ruins remind her almost more of the Taj Mahaal or Angkor Wat if they had some Western influence. Again, not something she expects to see in a desert. But it’s not just the impossible city or the impossible animal or Ed’s impossible not-magic.

It’s the impossible people with Derek’s skin tone and bone-white hair and impossible red, red eyes that watch them with open curiosity, open guardedness. There haven’t been many of them, outside the walls, but they greet Mei with pleasure, Heinkel with more caution, and watch the rest of them with either guardedness or surprise. 

“Is it just me,” Derek asks her, low and soft, “but does it seem like these people know Ed?”

Blinking, JJ shakes off the mental fuzz of  _ this is all way too much _ and concentrates on the profiling, concentrates on the reactions they’re getting. They’ve all had to do this before, scan through hours and hours of footage while staying focused, scan through dozens, if not hundreds, of faces looking for signs of things that aren’t right, looking for reactions. She just needs to treat this the same way. 

_ Don’t focus on everything _ , she told herself.  _ Focus on the specifics _ . There are what appear to be soldiers on the top of the wall, though no specific uniform that she can make out.

“So when Ed said he’s kind of famous here…” JJ trails, seeing a couple of kids giggle and run off. There isn’t a lot of activity outside the walls, but there is  _ some _ . 

“I think he understated how famous,” Derek finishes just in time to hear Ed squawk in outrage. 

At some point as they’d been walking, their path had become an actual road, and before them stands weakened walls, but what was once a magnificent fortification There’s a massive stone archway, and next to it, there is a statue… of  _ Ed _ . A younger Ed than they’ve ever known—and shorter. He’s not in any kind of discernable uniform, and the coat he’s wearing definitely doesn’t look standard, though it does remind her of the types of coats that Ed prefers. In his hand he holds what looks like some kind of talisman. His face, though youthful, is unyielding, firm. The artist managed to capture Ed’s twenty-mile stare perfectly. It’s somehow both reassuring and a little haunting. 

Ed claps his hands, and Heinkel has to grab him. 

“Don’t you dare!” Mei scolds.

“Why the fuck would that thing even  _ exist _ ?” Ed demands, flailing in Heinkel’s grip. It occurs to JJ that the statue is… very short, and she knows that Ed is a bit…  _ touchy _ about his height. Apparently this is why.

“Because you’re the People’s Alchemist!” Mei tells him firmly, using the exact same tone JJ uses when Henry is being unreasonable. It’s a pure  _ mom _ tone that she didn’t expect from the young woman. “Because  _ you _ helped save all of Amestris—”

“It wasn’t just me—”

“You were the ones who uncovered it first!” she shouts over him, then gets teary-eyed, which at least makes Ed stop fighting. “You and Alphonse and the General and your father.” The last one makes Ed look away from her and grit his teeth. Ed does not talk about his father, but the rare occasions they’ve brushed up against the topic have made his feelings on the subject abundantly clear. “You saved the whole  _ country _ !”

“You did too,” he says softly. “If it weren’t for you, we wouldn’t have been alive to save anyone.”

“I didn’t beat god to death with half the Amestrian army watching,” she replies, equally as soft. She rubs the tears away from under her eyes then looks straight at him. “I’m not the People’s Alchemist. Neither is Alphonse. You  _ are _ . You saved fifty million people, Edward. You put the people first.  _ You _ suggested that Xerxes could be rebuilt as a waystation and that the Ishvalans should control it.” JJ glances at Derek, who looks like he’s not following this much better than she is.  _ Fifty million? _

Heinkel hesitantly releases Ed, looking ready to grab him again, but Ed just crosses his arms and looks at the ground. “It seemed like an obvious solution. Amestris pretty much razed their historical territory. It’d be easier to rebuild this place. It would also give them a land to control that was theirs and give them some actual, you know, leverage. There were already refugee camps here anyway…” he trails off as if nothing he just said was special or worthy of note, but the way that Heinkel and Mei are looking at him tells another story. They’re looking at him with fond exasperation. 

“And that’s why,” a new voice says from through the archway. A man in what’s clearly a blue military uniform with gold accents comes into view. He has his white hair pulled back into a tail, stylized mutton chops, and is the first person she’s seen in a uniform with dark skin and red eyes. “Because of your remarkable compassion and humanity. ‘Alchemist, be thou—’”

“‘For the people,’” Ed finishes in union with him. “Lieutenant Colonel Miles,” he says, smiling. “I wondered who was keeping an eye out.”

Miles steps forward and a couple of soldiers who are clearly an escort step back, though even the soldiers with him are looking at Ed with a little awe. “Lieutenant Colonel Elric.” Rather than saluting, he holds out his hand. Ed takes it with his metal hand, and it’s so  _ strange _ to JJ to see Ed be willing to touch someone, be willing to reach out and shake. 

“You know, last time I saw you, I wasn’t an alchemist anymore,” Ed points out reasonably. “And are you going to explain that monstrosity to me?” He nods over Miles’s shoulder to the statue. It is an admirable likeness, JJ thinks, but it serves to highlight how  _ alive _ Ed is in person. 

“The Ishvalans wanted symbols of people to welcome people both from the East and the West. We wanted everyone to be welcome here, wanted symbols that people would  _ remember _ . And we wanted to honor this place’s history.”

“If you wanted a symbol, you could have just used Al’s fucking armor. He’s as Xerxian as I am.”

“Yes, but he is not the infamous Fullmetal Alchemist,” Miles says, eyes crinkling in amusement. 

“So who’s facing the—oh, fuck. You did not,” Ed says, eyes growing narrow. “You wouldn’t.”

“He is quite renowned in the East—”

Heinkel grabs Ed just as he makes to lunge forward, apparently expecting the outburst. “You put that  _ bastard _ on the Eastern Gate?” he demands. 

“You will not destroy your brother’s work!” Mei says firmly, and Ed slumps. 

“He would think that bastard deserves to be honored.”

JJ has so many questions, but she can tell it’s not the time. 

There are footsteps pounding, and then a young man with dark skin and red eyes bursts through the archway, someone who can  _ only _ be Ed’s brother in tow. 

Ed’s eyes land on him almost instantly, and he says, “Al!” in a tone that JJ has never heard him use, drinking in his brother with emotions that remind her of desperate parents when they’re reunited with their missing kids. He makes an aborted move toward him but stops cold, waiting. 

Al’s eyes are equally as surprised. He says “Brother—!” moving toward Ed for a fraction of a moment, before stopping himself, an eerie reflection of his brother. His eyes are gold, but more burnished than Ed’s, just a little less striking. They go from bright with surprise and relief to clouded and suspicious, and JJ has to wonder what has happened to these people that they distrust the evidence in front of their eyes so readily. Al’s gaze moves to Mei, who nods, looking hopeful and sincere. He doesn’t seem relieved though, frowning instead. “Which one of us killed the first rabbit we caught on the island?” he asks. 

The tension goes out of Ed’s shoulders, and a tenderness JJ hasn’t seen before fills his face. “The stupid fox stole it while we were arguing over who had to kill it.” He closes his eyes and smiles a little ruefully. “Just as fucking well—rabbit’s terrible if you’re—”

He is cut off abruptly as Al flings himself into Ed’s arms. Even though he isn’t watching for it, even though Al is nearly a full head taller than him, Ed catches him as if he’s an overeager child. Al crumples trying to make himself smaller. Ed holds him close, stroking his hair as if marveling at him. 

“Brother!” Al says, voice rough with emotion.

“I missed you too, Al,” Ed says softly, hugging him just as tight. " _So much._ "  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Hides* This chapter gave me absolute fits. I was going for ugly crying and I'm not sure I hit it at all. I hope I did better than I feel like I did...
> 
> Oh, also, I kind of felt like using Hebrew/Judaism as an inspiration for Ishvalans has kinda been done (and done really well, and I didn't want to steal from other interpretations I've seen with that inspiration), so I decided to steal some inspiration from the origin of the word Ishvara, which is a Hindu concept. _Ktschinya_ is _not_ the Hindu word for Scar, but it is an approximation of how the pronunciation of it sounded to me, so I'm using that so it's "inspired by" without being a perfect analogue to anything in our world. 
> 
> And yes, rav3nsta9--the statue is your fault. Thank you for that :)


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Al is whole, and he’s in Ed’s arms, and he’s perfect and huge, and he feels heavy, and Ed is so relieved, he can feel the tears prickle at the back of his eyes.

Al is whole, and he’s in Ed’s arms, and he’s perfect and huge, and he feels heavy, and Ed is so relieved, he can feel the tears prickle at the back of his eyes. The only thing he’d need to make this moment utterly perfect is to have Roy here, supporting him. 

He doesn’t have that, still doesn’t know for sure that Roy will even want to still be with him, but the warmth on his wrist reassures him that Roy is alive and he is okay. As long as they are both alive, there is a chance to make things better. Ed is not an optimist. No matter how he might try to dispute it, Roy has always been the optimist and Ed the realist, but if Ed has faith in anything, he has faith in Al and he has faith in Roy. Having Al in his arms again reminds him that as long as they are both alive, there is a chance. There is opportunity to set things right. They have been through far too much to walk away over this argument. Ed has finally found his way home, even if he didn’t do it on purpose. Now he needs to get his partner back, and with Al, that goal suddenly seems so much more in reach.

After hugging each other so tightly, Ed thinks they may have given each other bruises, Al finally straightens. Ed is exasperated to realize Al kept growing, but he supposes he should have expected it, and even though Ed got to 5’7”, Al is probably of a height with Morgan. Ed reaches up to ruffle his hair. 

“Look at you getting so big after leeching off me for four years,” he says. He can tease only because Al is whole and beautiful, and even though he got to see Al be whole before he and Roy got pulled to Earth, the last time Ed saw him, he was still scrawny, his joints weak, and far too thin. He had still needed canes to walk for any distance, so seeing him now, healthy and filled out and tall… it’s almost everything Ed had ever wanted after their failed attempt. He looks like he’s always been strong and healthy. 

“Where have you been? How did you get back? Where’s the General?” Al asks. He had to have seen JJ and Morgan, but he must have dismissed them as a threat since they are with Ed. “And hello, there. I’m Alphonse Elric. You’re acquainted with my brother?”

JJ and Morgan are looking rather shell-shocky again, which is not great. They really ought to get into some shade, if not indoors, and get some food in them. 

Ed opens his mouth to introduce them, but as if on cue, his stomach growls audibly. 

It turns out to be a great icebreaker because nearly everyone laughs. Al laughs so hard that there are tears in his eyes, but Ed thinks that’s probably not just from Ed’s stomach growling. 

“Laugh it up,” he tells them, trying to be grumpy but honestly too happy to see Al to quite pull it off. “Anyway, these are Morgan and JJ. They were on my team in their world, and they got pulled into this fucking mess. I’m assuming Roy’s still in their world, so we got to get them back to their world and get Roy back to ours,” he explains. Hughes’s surprised face flashes across his memory, but he doesn’t know for sure if he was brought back for Truth to kill him again or if he actually ended up in the world with Roy. Until he figures out a way to be sure, he doesn’t want to argue with anyone about it. 

He hopes Hughes is with Roy, that Roy isn’t stuck with Ed’s rightfully suspicious team alone. There are other reasons he’s hoping Hughes is with Roy, not the least of which is hoping that he can bring him home to Gracia and Elicia. But until he can find a way to confirm, more than not wanting to argue, he doesn’t want to get anyone’s hopes up. 

While he was spacing out, JJ and Morgan had stepped forward introducing themselves properly. 

Ed’s stomach grumbles loudly again, and Al grins so wide it looks like it has to hurt. 

“Let’s go get some food! It’s almost dinner time anyway. I left Scar and Adiayah handling the stew,” Al says. 

“Scar’s here too? And Adiayah?” Ed asks as a kid catches his eye again. Well, he looks young to Ed, but he’s probably sixteen. “Ruutan?” he asks.

The boy’s face lights up, apparently delighted that Ed remembers him. “Yes, Ed!” he says. “And yes, Aunt Adiayah.”

_ Fuck _ , the kid has gotten big. Ed remembers meeting him, if only briefly, the last time he was here in the Xerxian ruins. “Stop fucking growing already,” he says, not able to help the smile. “Your grandpa still around?” Ed thinks the kid's grandpa was the chief he had talked to last time he was here. 

“You actually remember?” Al asks, sounding stunned, and Ed doesn’t really blame him. Ed would usually have  _ sucked _ at remembering this shit—it was always Al’s forte.

“Yeah,” he admits. “Roy and I—sometimes it felt like a dream, you know? So we started this game—describe everyone we could think of in a place and how they all knew each other. We’d just pick a place we’d been and try to remember everyone we’d interacted with. Anything we could remember about them.”

Al is looking at him with strangely misty eyes again. Ed pulls off one of his water bottles and tosses it at him, not surprised when Al catches it easily despite not being prepared for it. “We’re in a fucking desert. Quit wasting water.” 

His stomach grumbles again, and Al smiles happily. “Let’s go get you all fed before you wilt on the spot.”

Before they go back in, Ed looks up at the walls. “Any reason you haven’t restored the walls?” he asks. 

“As of right now, we have more important places to divert resources to rebuilding than the walls,” Miles tells him. 

Ed raises an eyebrow and glances pointedly around at the desert. “Are the Ishvalans objecting to using alchemy?” 

Al cocks his head curiously. “They’ve been allowing me, Mei, and Scar to do some limited assisting. Why?” 

“I’d be happy to help if they’re okay with it,” he says, shrugging. 

“You have your alchemy back?” Al asks, going straight to alarmed. He immediately grabs Ed and starts manhandling him around, checking to make sure he’s all in one piece.

“I didn’t pay anything! I think just going through the Gate again did it!” Ed protests as Al effectively pats him down. 

Al frowns at him. “You know it never gives anything without a cost,” he says. 

That puts a damper on Ed’s relative good mood. “I don’t think it did it without a cost… there were just other people to pay it.”

“And it would accept others paying for your toll?” Al asks, skeptical. 

It has been bugging Ed too; he seems to have gotten off far too easily. “Twelve people died, Al.”

Their eyes meet, and Ed can see some of the knowledge Al gained in the Gate there. He knows the value of so many lives, knows what it could pay for. 

“We should talk to the elders before you decide to steal half the sand in the desert to rebuild the walls,” Al says diplomatically. “Why don’t we get you all into some shade and fed?” He turns to Mei. “Mei, it’s almost dinner anyway—” he starts. 

“Heinkel and I’ll go gather everyone for dinner, shall we?” she offers with a sly little smile before Al can finish. A strange look passes between them, one Ed can’t read but one that speaks volumes. He’s not used to being outside his brother’s silent exchanges, and it sits uncomfortably in his skin. 

Al reaches out to brush some stray hairs off her cheek, and Ed feels like an idiot. “That’d be great,” he says with a softness Ed has never seen, but it makes him miss Roy with a physical ache. 

She reaches up, gives his hand a squeeze, then nods, first to Al, then to them. “We’ll see you at dinner shortly!” she says.

Ed crosses his arms. “Do I need to have a discussion with you or with Al?”

She gives him a cheeky smile. “Who did Master Alphonse give a lecture to about the General?” she asks, but turns on her heel to dash into the city without waiting for a response. They begin to follow in her path, Al leading the way, though Mei, Xiao-Mei, and Heinkel are soon out of sight. 

It’s just fine, really. Ed gives Al a glare. “You told her,” he accuses. 

“That I warned you about breaking the General?” Al says, a picture of absolute innocence that doesn’t work quite as well as a twenty-four-year-old as it did when he was a fifteen-year-old, but it’s a close thing. 

“Yeah,” he says. “About that.”

“To be fair,” Al tells him, “I did also have a discussion with the General.”

“You… were okay with Ed being involved with General Mustang?” Morgan asks, only the slightest hesitation before he says Roy’s rank. 

Al gives him a blank look. “Of course I was. Why wouldn’t I be?” he asks, reminding Ed that he does, indeed have the best brother in the world. 

JJ and Morgan exchange a look, and this time JJ speaks. “It’s just… he was Ed’s commanding officer, and Ed was… rather young.” 

“He was sixteen,” Al says as if pointing out something that is obvious. 

Ed sighs. “The age of majority in their world is eighteen, Al. I only told them about Roy recently, and they’re… still not very comfortable with it,” he explains. 

“I know it’s not so common in the city, but Winry’s mom was only sixteen when they were married,” Al points out. 

Blinking, Ed realizes he can actually use Amestrian law since they’re now  _ in Amestris _ . “Sixteen is the age of majority in Amestris,” Ed tells them. “You can legally join the military or get married, even without parental consent. You can also get dispensations for certain trades to practice. In the cities, the defacto age of majority has been moving toward eighteen for a while, but in the country, where Al and I grew up, it’s still pretty common to be considered an adult at sixteen.”

“Besides which, you were legally an adult when you became a State Alchemist,” Miles points out. “You were the first to do it underage, but in theory, if you had wanted to get married, you could have. Honestly, even in Briggs we heard rumors about you and Mustang long before you actually transferred to General Armstrong’s command.”

Ed wants to complain, but honestly he and Al were aware of the disgusting rumors for years before Ed and Roy actually hooked up. 

“At least no one who ever actually met you believed the gossip?” Al offers. 

“Ed?” Morgan asks, sounding alarmed. 

“I was sixteen when Roy and I got together,” Ed reconfirms. “For the last time. But scuttlebutt is scuttlebutt, and soldiers talk. There were a lot of ugly rumors that went around when I was put under Roy’s command, and when I  _ did _ actually transfer, a lot of people just assumed that it was because I was of actual legal age, besides my murky legal status, that we decided to stop hiding it. Insisting that we hadn’t been doing anything before then would have been a case of ‘the lady doth protest too much,’ and no one would have believed it.”

“And they let you transfer anyway?” JJ asks. 

“I had kind of just helped to save the country,” he admits a little awkwardly. “The military  _ really _ wanted to keep me on the payroll, so they just took the transfer request in good faith.”

“Mei mentioned that before,” Morgan says. “That you saved the country. What exactly did you do?” 

Ed sees Al open his mouth to explain and promptly kicks him in the shin. 

“Ow!”

“It’s not that big of a deal,” Ed says before Al can say anything. Ed doesn’t know what he’s complaining about anyway—it’s not like he kicked him with the automail. 

“It seems like a big deal,” JJ points out. 

“It was a group effort.”

“Ed…” Morgan begins. 

“Look, if you think everything you’ve seen so far is completely crazy, that whole fucking nightmare is going to sound even crazier, and honestly, I don’t want to talk about it. What I want is to get food, then get started on how to get you home and Roy back here—in that order, preferably.” He knows he’s being short, he knows how incredibly frightened and frustrated JJ and Morgan must be, but explaining exactly what happened in Amestris is not likely to lower their blood pressure any. There’s really no reason to give them those kinds of nightmares if he doesn’t have to. He’s worked with them for nearly three years; he knows what kind of nightmares haunt them well at this point. 

He turns and glances back at Morgan, ignoring the way people have been staring and whispers have been running ahead as they move into more populated areas. “I’m not trying to hide shit from you or anything,” he tells them. “It’s just… you guys deal with really horrible shit.”

“ _ We  _ deal with really horrible shit,” JJ corrects. 

“Yeah, no. That’s the problem. You deal with really horrible shit, but it’s still  _ human _ . There’s only so much someone with human limitations can do, no matter how imaginative.” He stops and turns to meet their gazes squarely. “You know I respect the hell out of you. So please, trust me when I say  _ you do not want our nightmares added to yours _ . Okay? You just don’t. We’re going to get you home, and it isn’t going to matter, and there’s no reason to take those nightmares back with you.”

“What makes you so sure?” JJ asks, almost a plea. “You and Mustang have been in our world for over eight years. What makes you so sure you can get us home so quickly?”

She reminds Ed of Winry giving him her earrings, trying to make him promise he would survive to return them. But JJ isn’t afraid of losing Ed; her fear is a deeper one.  


He wonders if his mother ever looked at him and Al like that? If she knew she was going to die and that they would never see her again, and if she was this afraid for them? 

“We have three important things we didn’t have before,” Ed tells her firmly. “First, we have a connection.” He holds up his wrist. “Roy and I are separated, but we’re still connected. We didn’t have that in your world. It was dead the entire time we were there until I got close to the array. Our connection is open, and that is a game-changer. Second, we have alchemy. There is no one living who knows the gate and soul alchemy better than I do.”

“And the third?” she asks, almost as if she’s afraid to hope. 

He gives her a smug smile. “We have Al. Between the two of us, we’ll figure this out, Jayge. I promise. I’m going to get you home.”

She meets his eyes unblinking for almost uncomfortably long before she nods. “Okay,” she says. “I’m going to hold you to that.”

His smile softens. “I’d expect nothing less.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not the chapter I thought you were going to get, but I hope it satisfies?


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Welcome home, Edward."

They’ve probably been walking for the better part of half an hour before they finally arrive at a large, communal area. It’s set with tables, looking like nothing so much as a communal outdoor cafeteria. They have seen a lot more of what Derek assumes to be Ishvalans—the dark-skinned, red-eyed people—than they have the more European-looking people he’s coming to associate with Ed’s military. Al is obviously recognized and well regarded by the way people react to him. They’re much more reserved and hesitant with the rest of them, particularly with the military, even Miles.

He doesn’t miss the way they look at Ed though. Like they should recognize him, then with surprise. He can literally see the rumors racing on ahead of them to the point that when they get to the eating area, there are people who are clearly just there to gawk at Ed. 

But the gawkers aren’t the only ones waiting for them. 

Ed comes to a complete stop, the path in front of him clear except for four women, one teenage girl, and a giant of a man. Derek takes them in quickly—the blonde who is clearly military strikes him as being the biggest threat next to the man, the other blonde looks to be of an age with Ed while the woman with dreadlocked hair screams calm competence, but not military. 

The girl is the one that moves first, tears in her eyes as she flings herself forward. 

“Big brother!” she cries, and Ed crumples. 

“Elicia!” he says, catching her like she weighs nothing. To him, she probably doesn’t. He lifts her high in the air, and she laughs in delight, a waist-length braid waving like a banner. “You’ve gotten so _big_ ,” he says as he sets her down, his voice going tight with emotion. But there’s joy there too, real joy. She wraps her arms around his chest, the top of her head coming up to Ed’s nose, and buries her face in his shoulder. 

“You’re not allowed to leave again!” she tells him. He strokes a hand down her braid, his face going soft in a way that Derek is sure he’s never seen before, but it’s not far from how he looked at his brother.

“I’ll do my best,” he replies, then looks up. “Well? Don’t all be happy to see me or anything.”

Nearly everyone is teary-eyed. 

“Ed, you _asshole_ !” the blonde who almost looks like she could be his sister yells. “You insensitive prick! How could you just _vanish_ like that? And then show up like it’s nothing! Jerk! Asshole!”

“Hey, language, Winry!” Ed says, even though he’s laughing as he says it and the admonishment is more than a little rich coming from _Ed_ of all people. He puts his hands over Elicia’s ears and says, “We got young ears here.”

If Winry—if that’s right, strange name—were teary-eyed before, she’s absolutely sobbing now. “You stupid-head! You better not have screwed up my automail!”

“I’m still walking on it, aren’t I?” The banter is easy, familiar, as if they’ve seen each other only yesterday instead of the nearly nine years it’s actually been. 

Elicia moves to the side enough that Winry can wrap Ed in a tight hug, but she doesn’t let go of Ed’s waist, and he keeps her tucked into his side. 

“Jerk! Stupid! Meanie! If you ever do that again, I’m gonna steal your automail! See how far you get on one stupid leg!”

“Not very far,” he replies, patting the top of her head with his metal hand. 

She pulls back and rubs at her cheeks fiercely. “As soon as you sit down, I’m going to give you a proper tune-up—no! You probably need them replaced after so long. Who knows what the hell you’ve done to them.”

“I took care of them!”

“It would be a first!”

“Yes, yes, children,” the woman in dreads says, coming forward. Winry backs off a little bit, still staying close to Ed, and Ed’s face twists in another new way. 

“Teacher,” he says, and Derek can’t decide if it’s relief or joy or fear he hears in Ed’s voice.

Her eyes are dry, but her jaw is clenched to keep it from trembling. “You beautiful idiot,” she says, apparently deciding to wrap her arms around him. Derek sees Winry try to coax Elicia away, but she stubbornly stays attached to Ed, clinging to him as if he might disappear again if she doesn’t. All things considered, Derek doesn’t blame her. 

The larger man comes over and wraps his arms around all three of them, lifting them into the air for a crushing hug that, although Ed squawks at, he doesn’t even pretend to protest. 

“Welcome home, Edward,” the man says in a deep, rumbling voice. 

“Thanks, Sig,” Ed pats his arm, and they’re all put down. 

“If you ever disappear on us like that again, I’ll hunt you down myself, if I have to go through Truth to find you, am I clear!” she yells.

Ed flinches back a bit, but he’s still smiling and not at all surprised, so he’s used to it. Although Ed is obviously basking in what is attention from loved ones, it’s strange to hear anyone who knows Ed, and certainly must know how brilliant he is, call him an _idiot._

“I’ll do my best,” he says. 

She crosses her arms and nods. “See that you do.”

The woman who looks so much like Elicia, she can’t be anything other than her mother, steps forward, and she gives Ed an unreserved hug. “We’re so glad you’re okay,” she tells him. “You’ve been _so_ missed.”

Ed hugs her back with what must be almost crushing tightness. “I’ve missed you all too,” he assures. 

She steps back after a final squeeze, leaving only the military woman. She’s happy, but more reserved in her happiness, more worried. 

Derek shouldn’t be surprised that Ed knows exactly what has her concerned. “He’s not with me, but he’s fine,” he tells her and holds up his wrist. Some of the tension goes out of her shoulders. “I swear, Riza, I’m gonna bring him home too.”

 _Mustang,_ Derek realizes. She must be worried that Mustang isn’t with Ed. She smiles, then, unreserved for him. “I know you will, Lieutenant Colonel. And welcome home.” She salutes him.

“It’s good to be back, Captain.” He returns the salute. It’s the first time that Derek has seen Ed salute, and it’s honestly _bizarre_ . Nothing about Ed has ever made Derek think he’s military. Military people have this aura, this way they carry themselves due to their training that no amount of years out ever seems to erase, and Ed doesn’t have it. But when he snaps into a perfect salute despite Elicia still clinging to him, he suddenly _looks_ every bit the soldier. That perfect posture is in place, the set of the shoulders, the puff of the chest—no matter the military, it seems universal, and for the first time, Derek sees it in Ed. Ed who, despite his relatively short stature, actually tends to slouch as if hunched over a book, who never sits on anything so much as sprawls, who somehow always seems to take up more space than he should. 

People who have authority issues rarely do well in the military because the military demands obedience, at least in their world it does. But that’s obviously not the case here. Here, Ed’s abilities had been prized enough to give him substantial latitude that he never would have been given in any military Derek knows of. Given the women who were waiting to see him first, it also explains why Ed responds relatively well to women in a position of power. Men in power seem to trigger inevitable dick-measuring contests with Ed, usually leaving a lot of bruised egos in his wake, but whenever it’s a _woman_ in charge of the locals they’re working with, Ed always responds much better. If these are the kinds of women he grew up around, it suddenly makes a lot more sense. 

It seems that with the initial greetings past, the floodgates open. Exclamations and more banter and teasing explode as people step in to manhandle Ed, ruffling his hair, giving him hugs, punching him in some cases, Elicia stuck tightly to his side throughout it all, making him less of an aggressive target. 

Derek doesn’t notice the blonde captain make her way to them until she’s at their side. 

“If you’d like to get some food and sit down, now might be the time,” she suggests. As if on cue, Ed’s head turns, looking for them. He looks ready to call out when he sees the captain there. She gives a nod and a small smile, and he relaxes slightly, letting himself go back to paying attention to the people he hasn’t seen in so long. 

“I think we’d like that,” JJ says, politely, and puts her hand out. “I’m Jennifer Jareau. This is Derek Morgan. We work with Ed… in our world.”

“Captain Riza Hawkeye,” she introduces herself. “You can call me Riza or Hawkeye. So they were in another world, then?”

“You’re not surprised?” Derek asks.

“It was Alphonse’s hypothesis,” she explains as she starts leading them to where a massive cauldron is set up. “He refused to believe either Ed or the General could be dead.”

“You seem to accept that quite readily,” Derek says, not quite accusing.

She gets a rueful smile. “When you spend time around alchemists, you start forgetting human limitations,” she says after a moment. “And when you spend time around Elrics, that is even more true.” The humor leaves her eyes and they go dark. “Besides, imagining them gone, truly dead was, I think, unfathomable.” 

“Were you on Ed’s team?” JJ asks as they are given bowls. A large, Ishvalan man with an x-shaped scar across his forehead and an automail arm has been stirring the cauldron dutifully. He dishes them out generous portions of the stew. “Thank you,” she says to the man. 

He has a brooding disposition and merely nods in reply as he hands Derek his bowl. Something about him makes Derek’s hackles rise. Maybe it’s just how obviously fit he is for all that he’s stirring soup, but something about him makes Derek uneasy. A bubbly middle-aged woman gives them generous portions of a flatbread to go with whatever soup it is, along with carved wooden spoons that remind Derek more of Asian sipping spoons than Western ones.

“Ed and I were on General Mustang’s team—I’ve been the General’s adjunct since he was a lieutenant colonel himself. I went with him to recruit the Elrics.” 

Hawkeye takes a bowl for herself, and something seems to pass between her and the man, but no words pass as he lowers his eyes. She doesn’t comment, instead escorting them skillfully through what is now a crowd with Ed effectively holding court to a table where they have a good view of the proceedings but have a little bit of privacy. 

Once they’ve sat, JJ asks, “So you knew Ed when he was a child?” She takes a sip of the soup, and all but moans. “Holy crap, this is good.”

Mouth watering from the smells of the stew and even the bread, Derek indulges himself, and dips the bread. The taste that explodes across his palate is gamey but flavorful, reminding him of curry, but the spices aren’t quite right. There’s heat, but not overwhelming, and maybe it’s just their hunger, but it takes conscious effort not to inhale it on the spot. 

“I’m not sure I ever knew Edward and Alphonse as children,” Hawkeye says, a little wistful. “I don’t know that anyone who survived what they did is a child anymore.”

Silently resolving not to be judgmental about this any further when it’s clear no one here is, Derek swallows and asks, “What did Ed do? While he worked for Mustang?” 

Either some of his feelings about the man slip through or Hawkeye is unusually canny because she says, “I see the General doesn’t impress you much.” Before he can apologize, she continues on as if it’s unimportant. “Edward reported directly to Colonel Mustang until their respective promotions, at which time he moved to report up through General Armstrong.” Derek can’t help but look for signs of distaste or displeasure, though she must surely be aware of _why_ Ed transferred; he doesn’t find any. “While under Colonel Mustang, Edward mostly operated almost as an independent contractor. As a rule, State Alchemists tend to be given a fair amount of leeway in how they’re utilized, depending on their specialties. As a generalist, Edward could be deployed for any number of reasons—rogue alchemists were a particular specialty of his, but he also dealt with insurrections, conspiracies, honestly, anything that the local troops couldn’t deal with.”

“You sent a twelve-year-old to deal with things local militia couldn’t?” Derek can’t help asking, his eyebrows climbing. 

Hawkeye gives him a long look. “You don’t have alchemists in your world, do you, Mr. Morgan?”

“No, but—”

“Then I don’t know that you can fully understand,” she interrupts. “State Alchemists are the superartillery of the Amestrian military. They are living weapons, and age has little to do with it.” She pauses to take a bite, and her eyes are keen, clear, intelligent. “You work with Edward in your world, you said?” Derek and JJ nod. “What do you do?”

They exchange a glance. JJ leans forward. “We work for a law enforcement agency. Our job is to track serial offenders, mostly.”

“Serial offenders?” 

“Anyone who offends sequentially, repeatedly. Usually they have a pattern or a ritual to how they offend,” JJ explains. “But we also assist in kidnappings and bombers and general terrorists.”

“How is that different from normal law enforcement?” Hawkeye asks, appearing genuinely curious. 

“We look at a crime scene differently, try to get inside the head of the unsub—unknown subject,” Derek continues. “We don’t just look at the scene, we look at what they did that they didn’t have to. We use that information to try to figure out who they are, who they might strike next, use that to catch them.” 

“I’m not sure I understand how that’s different than what normal law enforcement operate.”

Derek exchanged a glance with JJ, and she gave him a raised eyebrow and a grin, giving him permission to do it. 

“We’re profilers,” Derek began. “That means we see things other people don’t. For example.” He glances over to the crowd around Ed. “Ed’s easy. We know him well, so as happy as he is to be surrounded by all of these people he knows and loves, he’ll turn, look for Mustang. You can see it.” Hawkeye shifts to look over at Ed. Someone has given him a bowl of stew, which he promptly inhales, then laughs, Elicia still with an arm around his waist. He turns as if to say something, and for just a moment, his happiness dims. Derek wishes he could take pleasure in it. 

Morgan glances around Ed and says, “Elicia isn’t actually Ed’s little sister. She’s a friend of the family, obviously has known him since she was very young, and she trusts him completely, even though she hasn’t seen him in almost nine years. She lost her father when she was young, and she’s scared of Ed disappearing again.” 

Hawkeye seems mildly impressed but not entirely sold, so he looks at her. “You’re career military, and you always worked under Mustang. You’re deeply loyal to him, nearly devoted. You were relieved to see Ed, but you were more concerned about Mustang. But it’s not romantic. You two served together, in the same unit, probably, and something about the situation you served under made you believe in him. Not romantic though, because you know that he and Ed are involved and yet I see no sign of jealousy. You were genuinely relieved and happy to see Ed.”

She gives him a look like she’s impressed, then she says, “Edward and the General had an argument recently, and they haven’t made up yet. And you’re not nearly as close as you say you are because you haven’t known about them for long, and you are really not comfortable with them being together, are you?” She twists this time to really look at Ed. “He’s hidden a lot from you, hasn’t he?” 

“It makes sense though,” JJ says, sad but understanding in a way that Derek isn’t sure he shares. “How could he have possibly shared all of this with us? He didn’t even trust us with Mustang, and given how we’ve reacted, I can hardly blame him.” 

The stew suddenly sits heavy in Derek’s stomach. He looks at Hawkeye again, _really_ looks at her. “You’re marksman,” he says. “You’re a stickler for the rules in most cases. Even in this heat where we’ve seen plenty of soldiers relax their uniforms a little bit, you haven’t at all. But you also have some hairs on your clothing that you didn’t quite manage to get off, so you have a dog.”

This time she looks a little more impressed. “I could have a cat,” she suggests. 

Derek shakes his head. “No, you like order far too much, and dogs are far more trainable. You definitely have a dog,” he tells her, and then it clicks. “That’s why your relationship with Mustang isn’t romantic, and never has been. It’s why you still call him by his title and keep that distance between you, however deep your bond as soldiers is. Mustang is a cat—he’s going to do what he wants, when he wants, and there is no training him. But you know…” he trails off, not quite able to say it. 

“But I know that someone even freer and more untamable is exactly what he needs?” she offers for him anyway. “The bond that we share is real and deep. It is beyond family, beyond romance, I think, but what he and Edward share…” She shrugs. “I think we all saw what it would become. That nothing less than the wildfire itself could love the sun so much without being burned.”

“I apologize for my tardiness,” Mei’s voice calls, cutting through the crowd that has been gathering while they’ve been talking to Hawkeye. Ed stands from where he was seated, still keeping Elicia close to his side, but his face has gone frighteningly blank, almost afraid. In her arms is a bundle, and even from their distance, Derek can see Ed’s searing yellow eyes peeking out curiously.

Ed must see them too because he turns to his brother, near horrified. “Al, what?” Then his jaw snaps shut. To a profiler’s eyes, it’s suddenly obvious that with those big golden eyes and that jet-black crown of hair that the child must be Al and Mei’s. “What the fuck? Why didn’t you—?”

“You didn’t ask,” Al informs, beaming as Mei approaches with the baby. 

“But you’re not—”

“It seemed wrong to get married if you weren’t here, and besides, you’re the one who always said that marriage doesn’t make people stay.” 

“Six months?” JJ guesses softly. 

“Six months tomorrow,” Hawkeye confirms. “It’s why we’re all here—for the celebration.” 

Derek glances at her, but only briefly, feeling like something important is about to happen. Elicia finally steps back, though still within arm’s reach as Mei approaches not Ed, but the scarred man and hands the infant to him. He takes the child with gravitas, and steps toward Ed. Mei discretely moves around to stand by Al’s side. 

“The child was born six months ago tomorrow,” the man announces with a tone that seems ritualistic. “The first child born in a city rebuilt. A child born of Amestrian, Xerxian, and Xingese blood in a place that has been bequeathed to the children of Ishvala, and so makes her Ishvalan by rite. Ishvala’s graces us today, returning her long-lost uncle amidst the celebration of her birth. Though I am unworthy, my brothers and sisters have declared that I am _pujaarti_ , the head of Ishvala in this city reborn. As such, and given Ishvala’s obvious grace, I believe it is only fitting that the child finally be Named.”

His voice carries easily among the crowd, the rhythm of it nearly hypnotic. “Parents of the child, have you a name to bestow on the child?” the man asks. 

“We do,” Al and Mei chorus, obviously prepared. Ed shoots them a dismayed look but doesn’t interrupt. 

“Name her, then, before your gathered peoples, before your family, before Ishvala herself, and let her name be known before the goddess.”

“We name her Eden,” Al says in a clear, confident voice, and Ed turns to stare at him in abject horror that would be hysterical if not for the solemnity of the occasion. 

“You can’t—”

“We name her for one who is beloved to us, whose resolve is great, his capacity for empathy and love even greater,” Mei says, running right over Ed. “We honor my beloved’s brother with her name, and so Eden she shall be.”

The man smiles, the first time that Derek has seen anything other than sternness on his features, and he raises the infant above him. “I present the child to Ishvala and call her name Eden, lifting her name to Ishvala’s ears.” She squeals as he lowers her with care, and it’s a happy sound. Derek hears people all around saying her name in varying tones of reverence and joy. “Only those who are trusted friends of Ishvala may hold the child.” He addresses Al and Mei. “Do you trust this man with the child, Eden?” 

“We do,” they say, and Al’s eyes look suspiciously watery. 

“The parents of the child, Eden, who are Ishvalan by rite of their place as parents of the first child, have granted trust and allegiance to Edward Elric, once the Fullmetal Alchemist, known throughout the people of Ishvala, Amestris, and Xing as the People’s Alchemist. As they offer him their trust, I place the first child, Eden, in his arms.”

Ed hastily holds out his arms to cradle the infant, taking her with care and ease, just like Derek had seen him handle JJ’s son, Michael. He gazes down into her face, meeting eyes as bright as his own, and he looks awed. She reaches up a tiny hand and Ed holds up a metal finger for her to grasp. She squeals that unique happy sound that infants make and tears spill from Ed’s eyes. He manages to tear his eyes away from her to look at his brother and say, “ _Al_ ,” in a tone so overflowing with love and surprise and exasperation, it tugs at even Derek’s heart. He sees JJ discretely wipe her eyes. 

“So the first child has been Named, her name has been cast to the heavens for Ishvala’s ears. We gladly welcome a new member of our family, by the grace of Eden’s trust,” the man declares. “Let the celebration begin!”

The cheers go up around them, and Ed casts his eyes around for a moment, looking for Mustang again, before he turns to find them. He gives them a watery smile and lifts Eden a little higher, as if showing her off, the sun sparkling off his tears in a way that almost makes them look like diamonds. Derek can’t help but return his smile, an odd pride welling in his chest as music that is at once foreign and familiar begins to be played. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I'm almost late, haven't had a chance to go over this chapter the way I would prefer, so I hope it's up to normal standards? Please, if you see stupid typos, tell me--Word, Google Docs, and even Grammarly don't catch them all, and I'm too tired to see them right now.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ed’s still a little emotional about all of this and hearing Scar make as close to a joke as he’s heard isn’t helping.

It is obvious the ceremony is over, and Scar puts his hand on Ed’s shoulder. Despite the festivities going on, they’re still given space. “The ceremony was supposed to take place tomorrow, but with you here, it seemed fitting today,” he reiterates. 

Ed’s still a little emotional about all of this and hearing Scar make as close to a joke as he’s heard isn’t helping. “Couldn’t you have warned me?” he asks.

Scar lifts an eyebrow a smidge. “Couldn’t you have warned us you were returning?”

Chuckling, Ed says, “Fair enough.” He looks over Scar, realizes there’s an ease about him that wasn’t there when Ed last saw him. “How’s the arm for you?”

Reflexively, Scar clenches his fist, not all that different from how Ed tends to anytime he’s really thinking about his own automail. “I am unworthy of Ms. Rockbell’s fine work,” he says after a moment. “But grateful for it.” 

“Never decided on a new name? Al called you Scar earlier.”

“It’s as fitting a name as any. You may have removed the hand that sinned, but I must still bear its weight. The name serves as a reminder.” Ed remembers removing that arm, the one meant only to destroy, the one with the blood of so many on it. 

“More of one than the automail?” Ed asks, unable to resist. It’s strange to tease Scar like this, but he seems settled and at ease.

“Just so.”

“Are you going to hog my daughter all night?” Mei asks, moving forward again. Scar inclines his head and melts off into the crowd. 

Ed turns Eden away from her. “You named her after me—and seriously, Al, what the  _ fuck _ were you thinking—I think that makes her mine,” he tells her with a grin, spinning in a quick circle that makes Eden giggle. That small, happy sound fills Ed’s chest, and he can’t help but look down at her happy face. 

“I can’t think of anyone better to name her for,” Al tells him, affection and sincerity thick in his voice. 

The instinct to turn to Roy to deflect or commiserate over how stupidly sentimental his brother is is strong, but Ed manages not to. Roy isn’t here. They weren’t in a good place last time they saw each other. Ed still misses having Roy by his side with a physical ache.  _ You’re going to bring him home, and you’re going to fix this,  _ he reminds himself. There’s no other option. 

“Such a fucking sap,” Ed complains to distract himself. “And what’s this about you not getting married just ‘cause I wasn’t here?” Whatever Ed feels about marriage, he knows that Al would have wanted the whole white-picket-fence and two and a half kids thing, complete with the ring and the big fucking ceremony.

Al puts his hands up, placating, and the gesture is so familiar, it’s another harsh pang in his chest. “Like I said, it wouldn’t have been right to get married without you there.”

Only Al can strike him quite so dumb. Of course Al had complete faith that Ed was still out there, still alive, would somehow find his way back. It’s  _ Al _ , and Ed finds himself once again humbled by his brother’s faith, not at all sure he deserves it, but resolving anew to live up to it.

JJ and Morgan must have decided to come see Ed’s adorable niece, because they maneuver their way through the milling people to get to them. 

“So this is Eden, huh?” JJ asks, and Ed can see the longing in her eyes. 

Reluctant as he is to let her go, Ed looks over his shoulder at Al. “Is it okay—?”

Al smiles. “Of course it is.”

“To share Eden on her Naming Day is a matter of great trust. It shows that the people you are willing to share her with are people worthy of being called friends, that they are trustworthy and honorable,” Scar informs. 

Ed raises an eyebrow at Al, who still smiles. 

“If you trust them, Brother, I see no reason not to.”

“All right then,” Ed says, stepping toward JJ, who holds her arms out for Eden. “There’s no question that my team are good and trustworthy.” 

JJ takes her with the comfort and familiarity that only parents seem to have. “Hi Eden,” she says as she bounces her. “Wow, look at your  _ eyes _ .”

“You must have children of your own,” Mei comments with her own smile. 

“I do,” JJ says, glancing up at her. “Two boys.” 

Mei’s face becomes softer, somehow. “You must already miss them terribly,” she says. 

When JJ looks up again, there aren’t quite tears in her eyes, but it looks like they may be close. “Yeah…”

“Have faith in Edward and in Master Alphonse. They’ll get you home. I’m certain of it.”

“And it’s not going to take eight fucking years this time,” Ed growls under his breath. He can’t imagine being separated from Roy for that long, never mind what JJ may be feeling, separated from her kids. 

Morgan turns to Scar. “I’m sorry, we haven’t been introduced. Derek Morgan. My colleague, Jennifer Jareau,” he says, holding out his hand. 

“Call me JJ, please,” she says, holding out her own hand. 

Scar takes their hands tentatively with his own automail. Though he’s had it for years, it’s always a little tricky to know exactly how much pressure you’re putting on a human hand.

“I am called Scar,” he says. 

“Scar is the head priest here in Xerxes,” Al volunteers. “He was a warrior monk before that.”

“The ceremony was beautiful,” Morgan says, and Ed is watching them warily because he feels like introducing JJ and Morgan to Scar is a mercury-triggered bomb that the slightest upset is going to set off. 

“How do you know Ed?” JJ asks in that absent way people do when they make small talk, still mostly focused on Eden, who is smiling wide and bright for her. 

Ed seriously has to consider that there might be a better god out there than Truth because Al jumps right in to say, “He helped us with a problem we were having over ten years ago.”

And then he’s reminded that Truth is a bitch when Scar gives Al a strange look and says, “I tried to kill you.”

That makes JJ’s head snap up and Morgan stare. 

“You… tried to kill… Ed and Al?” Morgan asks in that tone that says he must have misunderstood. 

“I was on a quest for vengeance to murder all the State Alchemists for the atrocities committed against my people,” Scar says plainly, and Ed can only hang his head in his hands. 

“You… murdered… people?” JJ asks faintly as if something isn’t computing, curling Eden a little closer to her. 

“Our government was horrifically corrupt and launched a genocidal civil war against Ishvalans,” Ed explains. “State Alchemists were front and center in the conflict, and the loss of life was obscene. It wasn’t unlike your Holocaust, to put it in your perspective.”

“You fought in this?” JJ asks, aghast. 

“Nah, I was still a kid,” Ed says. 

“Mustang did, though,” Morgan makes the leap. 

Ed sighs. “Can we  _ please _ not do this right now? Yes, Roy was in the Ishvalan Civil War, and yes, he did terrible things under orders for that war. Why, of all times, did you have to bring it up  _ right now _ ?” he demands, glaring at Scar. 

“I see no reason to hide my sins or others’,” he replies solemnly. 

“It’s not a matter of hiding, it’s a matter of time and place,” Ed snaps back. “Remind me again who built your arm?”

Scar inclines his head. “Miss Rockbell has been more than kind to me—”

“If we’re family and Ishvalan by this rite, then you better believe that Winry is too. It’s not the time or the place to bring up old wrongs and old sins. She’s forgiven you, hasn’t she? And you’ve forgiven Roy?”

He’s not actually 100% sure of the second one, but Scar and Roy  _ had _ come to some kind of truce before they got swept to the other world. 

Ruby eyes seem to bore into him, but Ed has stared down Truth itself, and Scar is just not that scary in comparison. Scar blinks first. 

“I see your time in the other world has not dulled your tongue,” he says, inclining his head again. “As you say, brother, a celebration is not the time or place to rehash forgiven grievances.” 

“Brother?” Ed can’t help but squawk. He’s so used to hearing that from Al, but it feels downright bizarre coming from Scar. 

“It’s part of the ceremony,” Al explains, seeming happy to jump in. “An old Ishvalan tradition that Scar rediscovered when Xerxes was first given to the people. The first child to be born in a reclaimed location was considered precious and a good omen. It didn’t matter who gave birth to the child, traveler, someone passing through, or Ishvalan, that child is sacred. A First Child. They aren’t named until they survive their first six months. If they do, they’re considered a good omen, named before Ishvala, and the child and their parents—and by extension, whoever their parents denote—were considered Ishvalan as well.” 

“It is an old rite that had passed out of use,” Scar adds. “But Alphonse found it in an Ishvalan text he located in his travels. He shared it with me, and with Alphonse and Mei’s daughter to be the first child born in this reclaimed place, a land connecting two great nations, one being given to the care of my people, it seemed appropriate to bring the tradition back.” 

Looking at JJ still holding Eden, Ed feels a warm ball expand behind his ribs. “A child to unite us all, huh?” he asks. 

“Ed, can I speak to you?” Morgan asks, and given how intense his eyes are, Ed is sure he knows what this is about. 

“Sure—JJ, you good with Al and Mei?” he asks her, because he wants to be sure. 

She has subtly shifted until Al and Mei are between her and Scar, and Ed doesn’t exactly blame her, but it’s tiresome all the same. “I’m good,” she says, bouncing Eden a little more, though there’s concern in her eyes as Ed lets Morgan pull him aside. 

“Ed, is he really—”

“Yes, Scar was a serial killer—emphasis on the past tense, okay?” Ed says before Morgan can start. 

The concerned furrow in Morgan’s brow doesn’t recede in the least. “You know what we do for a living. You know these guys don’t stop—”

“He did, all right?” Ed cuts him off. “He was a justice collector, and one with a very legitimate beef, okay?” He sighs. “He changed, Derek.” He hoped Morgan would listen with him pulling out the big guns. “He had every opportunity to kill me and to kill Roy and he worked  _ with us _ instead. He changed his mind, he  _ changed _ . It was never about the kill for him, and seeing Roy…” He bit his lip, not wanting to share this because Morgan already disliked Roy so much, but it was important. “He saw Roy’s rage consuming him. He saw  _ what _ he might become if he stayed on the vengeful path he was on, and he  _ changed _ .”

“Killers don’t change.”

“No, we put them between a rock and a hard place and force them to suicide or lock them away forever so they can’t ever make amends for what they’ve done,” Ed replies, then takes a breath. “Look, I know why we do things the way we do in your world. I do, okay? And not that the U.S. government isn’t a fucking back of quacks, but it’s  _ nothing _ like here. The Ishvalans… they were killed because they could be. Our government tried to sacrifice the  _ entire population _ , okay? That’s not hyperbole. That’s literally what they tried to do, and the Ishvalan genocide was just a piece of that plan.”

“I don’t believe for a minute you would be party to that,” Morgan says, folding his arms. 

“I wasn’t. Look, it’s complicated, but we figured it out, and we stopped it, but we couldn’t have done it without Mei and Scar. He could have let the whole of Amestris burn, and he didn’t. He hated Roy more than almost any other State Alchemist, and when he had a chance to kill him, when Roy wouldn’t have stopped him, he helped us.”

Morgan sighs, still visibly uncomfortable. 

“I cut off his arm,” Ed says, which makes Morgan stare at him. “Alchemy has three parts: identification, deconstruction, and reconstruction. His arm had tattoos that allowed him to get to deconstruction of virtually anything. After the coup, he didn’t want that power anymore, and he asked me to take the burden of the arm that had caused so much death. Trust me,  _ he’s changed _ .” 

“The  _ coup—? _ ” Morgan cuts himself off and says, “No, I don’t want to know.” Silence hangs between them for what seems like ages. “I don’t like it,” he finally says, then sighs again. “I don’t really like anything about this, but it’s your world, and your rules. I trust you, so I guess that means I have to trust you with this too.” He gives Ed a long, considering look that Ed can’t quite read, then says, “You really didn’t get to be a kid, did you?”

Ed scratches the nape of his neck under his braid because he’s not really sure what Morgan’s angling for here. “I stopped being a kid when I tried to resurrect my mom,” he admits. “It cost me an arm and a leg”—His eyes track to Al without meaning to.—“and it nearly cost me Al. You don’t tread where god lives without paying a price for it, and my childhood is the least of what I paid. The least of what I  _ should have _ paid.”

Grim curiosity is in Morgan’s eyes, but instead he asks, “Why Mustang? For real. Why did you pick him? Why your boss?”

He doesn’t mean to laugh since Morgan is obviously compartmentalizing, but the chuff comes out anyway. “You say that like love is something you just  _ choose _ . We didn’t  _ mean _ for it to happen. It just did. Somehow, our broken pieces seem to line up. We fit.”

“You really love him.”

It’s not a question this time, but Ed answers anyway, meeting Morgan’s eyes fearlessly. “I really do.”

“And you really trust this Scar?”

“I trust him with Al and Roy and Eden.”

Discontent still pulls at Morgan’s mouth, in the furrow of his brow and the narrowing of his eyes, but he makes an obvious effort to soothe his features. “Then we trust him,” he says. 

“You don’t have to trust him, you just have to trust me.”

Ed finds no lie or deception when Morgan says, “We do.”

He breathes an internal sigh of relief. “Good. Now let’s go see my niece, and I’ve got a ton of crazy family for everyone to meet.”

This is probably not the last conversation they’ll have about this, but it feels like something has changed. It will take time and effort on Morgan and JJ’s parts to overcome what all their training says, but for the first time, Ed really feels like he’s making inroads with them, chipping away at what they think they know, and showing them that the world doesn’t always fit within the boxes they’re so fond of. 

It’s not perfect, but seeing JJ’s relieved face when they come back, watching her hand Eden to Morgan who takes her with such care into his arms, it’s definitely a first step. Ed sees the ache in JJ’s eyes as she lets go of Eden into arms she knows are safe, and he resolves again. 

_ He will get them home. _ Whatever it takes, Ed will get everyone back home where they belong. 

The fact that  _ where everyone belongs _ isn’t a single place isn’t worth worrying about right now. First problem first—getting people home. Saying goodbye will come later; getting home is the priority. 

JJ’s boys are not going to grow up without their mother. Not if Ed has anything to say about it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me: "I'm going to do A, B, and C in the next chapter, to set up for things 4 and 5 in the next."  
> Also me: "2600 words and only gets to A in this chapter."
> 
> Slow burn is slow... 😅 I'm so sorry... *hides*


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The coffee is terrible, but it’s something and Emily has developed a strange soft spot for shitty police-station coffee. It’s still caffeine, and that’s the most important thing. 

The coffee is terrible, but it’s something and Emily has developed a strange soft spot for shitty police-station coffee. It’s still caffeine, and that’s the most important thing. 

Mustang and Hughes still have their heads together, and every time she looks at them, she feels a combination of irritation and a tiny thrill of fear. She doesn’t like it, doesn’t like being afraid, doesn’t like not understanding this strange power that Mustang has, still hates that he’s involved with a member of her team at all, even though she hasn’t had the time to develop the relationship with Ed that she has with the rest of the team. He’s still _her team_ , and that means he’s _hers_ , and Emily takes her responsibilities seriously. 

Her phone goes off, and when Emily checks the screen, she eagerly picks up. “What do you have for us, Penelope?” she asks, putting the phone on speaker. Everyone sits up, paying attention. 

“Well, you asked me to just look into everything around Tucker Maes, right?” Penelope’s bubbly voice comes across the phone, though there’s an undertone of stress that Emily knows is from the fact that part of their team is missing. 

“What’d you find?” Rossi asks, exchanging a glance with Emily. 

“Nothing really more, I’m afraid. Pretty much what we already knew,” she says with obvious frustration. “He was a mediocre student, graduated from high school with no prospects. The only employment history I see for him are a series of part-time retail jobs. He never went to college, and, as far as I can see, it doesn’t even really look like he applied. He has _no_ social media presence at all, which needless to say, is _strange_ for his age. He may just be really good at hiding his tracks, but I don’t see anything to indicate he had the kind of knowledge necessary to hide from me.”

“Did you look into Hugh Maes more?” Reid asks. 

Mustang’s brow furrows. “Why would you need to look into him further?” he asks. 

“I _did_ ,” Penelope says, continuing as if Mustang hadn’t interrupted. “So, Hugh Maes was definitely everyone’s favorite. Every person I can find to speak to him has nothing but good things to say about him. The worst thing they’ve said is that he can be a little much, a little over exuberant. Intelligent, hardworking. It’s pretty much universally agreed that his death was a loss. I also looked into the hitchhikers responsible for his death and… I found something kind of hinky.”

“Hinky? How so?” Emily asks. 

“Well, looking at what we know, I’m not sure the hitchhikers responsible for his death are actually both dead.”

“What did you find?” Reid asks. 

“Do you have a laptop you can open up? I’ll remote in and show you what I found,” she says.

“Got it.” Emily opens her laptop and everyone gathers around as two pictures pop up on the screen—a beautiful dark-haired woman and a man with thin, sharp features and a cruel smile. Mustang and Hughes stand up, both looking alarmed. “Meet Jasmine Ardour and Kimberly Zolf. Kimberly is the gentleman, by the way. They hitchhiked their way through the Appalachians, murdering people who picked them up, stealing their cars, and then dumping them when they got bored.”

The picture changes, showing a car down in a ravine. “It appears their luck ran out after murdering their final victim, Hugh Maes, because the car went over a guardrail. Jasmine Ardour’s body—though _body_ might be charitable—was found at the bottom of the ravine a couple weeks after the car was found, and retrieved.”

“Kimblee—” Mustang demands, “Zolf—was his body found?” 

“No, actually.” Penelope’s face pops up in a window on the screen. “His blood was found in the car and at the scene, but his body was never recovered. Given the, uh, _state_ Ardour’s body was found in, police assumed that it must have been carried off by wild animals.”

“He’s alive,” Mustang says with grim certainty. 

Emily stares at him. “How can you possibly know that?” 

“He’s alive and he killed his partner. He used the accident to cover it up.” He turns from Emily to address Penelope. “Miss Garcia, find out anything you can possibly about that man.”

Penelope looks confused. “I can do that, but… it’s been almost ten years. Even if he did survive—”

“He’ll have been around the area,” Mustang insists. 

Leaning over, Reid mutes the phone for a moment. “They’re more reflections,” he says. “More counterparts to people you knew in your world.”

“I don’t know the woman, other than she made a sincere effort to kill me,” Hughes says. “But I do know Kimblee. He’s… psychotic.”

“He _was_ ,” Mustang corrects. He pauses as if thinking about it. “I don’t want to influence what Miss Garcia finds. Once we are done with this call, I’ve listened to Ed break down criminals the way you do well enough to describe him.” He nods to Reid to unmute, then tells Garica, “Look for signs of insubordination. He was probably in the military, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he has a dishonorable discharge on his record.” 

“You should also crossreference Hugh Maes with Kimblee and see if their paths crossed anywhere. It’s possible that it’s a complete coincidence that he’s involved in my counterpart’s murder, but…” Hughes trails off. 

Penelope looks startled, but she nods. “I can do that, see if their histories matched up at all.”

“While you’re at it, Miss Garcia, can you also pull all of their other victims? I want to see if there are any other individuals that I might recognize,” Mustang asks. 

“Of course I can, but can I ask what this has to do with our missing agents and the missing seniors?” she replies. 

Mustang glances at Emily, and she appreciates him deferring to her judgment. They told Penelope that people were missing, but they haven’t explained where Mustang and Ed were from, at least not yet. Emily doesn’t really want to try to explain that over an open line. She isn’t sure that she’s ever going to be ready to have that conversation, but it will quickly become a moot point. She sighs. “It might be significant. Can you please do it, Penelope?”

“I can, you know I can, Emily. But JJ and Derek and Ed are missing and—” She cut herself off abruptly. “I’m sorry. I just—”

“We know you’re worried. We are too. I swear, Penelope, I wouldn’t ask you to do this if I didn’t think it were important.” 

She presses her lips into a flat line but nods. “Of course,” she says, though emotion still makes her voice tight. “I will dig into their victims and get those pictures over to you ASAP. I’ll also dig into Hugh Maes’s background and see if Kimberly Zolf and he ever crossed paths. Is there anything else I can do?”

This time Emily looks to Mustang and raises an eyebrow. “Not at the moment, I don’t think. Thank you, Miss Garcia, for your help.”

“Thank me by bringing our people home safely,” she says, then hangs up. 

“We aren’t going to be able to keep her in the dark about this much longer,” Rossi warns. 

“I know,” Emily says, sharper than she intended to, so she makes herself take a breath and repeats, “I know. I just don’t know how to tell her this. We have seen this stuff up close and personal, and _I_ am still having a hard time believing it.”

“That’s why Ed didn’t tell you,” Mustang says, surprisingly sympathetic. “We _know_ how crazy it sounds, and you haven’t even heard a fraction of it. We’ve been through things in our world that people there would find difficult to believe, never mind here.” 

Emily doesn’t want to think better of Mustang at the moment. She’s pretty happy to stay hating him, if she’s honest, so she says, “What do you know about Zolf?”

“He was an alchemist in our world,” Hughes volunteers. “He was jailed after a… civil conflict. Overzealous implementation of orders and insubordination. He’s…” He scratches at the side of his face, obviously trying to find the words. 

“A psychopath. He’s completely incapable of empathy. He was obsessed with explosives—that was his alchemical specialty. Trust me when I tell you that if _our_ military considered him too dangerous to be free, he was a problem.”

Hughes has a curious look on his face. “Was?” he asks.

“In our world, Bradley released Kimblee to track down a… person of interest. He nearly killed Ed in the course of doing so.” Hughes paled at the information. “He obviously didn’t manage, though it was closer than I’d like. He was killed by his own side, collaborating with a conspiracy. At least, he was on their side in as much as he’s ever on anyone’s side.” 

“Bradley was your king?” Rossi asks in a tone that says he reconfirming. 

“He was our fuhrer,” Mustang says. 

“Was?” Hughes asks again. 

“Scar killed him. Grumman was fuhrer when Ed and I were last there.”

Emily doesn’t know what to make of the look on Hughes’s face. “... Scar killed him?” he asks. 

“Yes.”

There is a lot more to that story than Mustang is saying, and Emily is beyond tired of the secrets and lies. “Who is Scar?”

“A serial killer with a grudge against State Alchemists.”

“Was your fuhrer a State Alchemist?” she asks.

“No, but he was responsible for the genocide that launched Scar’s career as a serial killer,” Mustang says, looking intently at the information that Penelope had left on the screen. He pauses to glance over at Hughes meaningfully. “You were right, about the array.”

“What array?” Reid asks. 

“It doesn’t matter,” Mustang says. “We need to find Kimblee, or his counterpart. I think there’s a chance that he has some memories from our world.”

Reid frowns at him. “What would make you say that? Nothing Garcia told us about him would indicate that he has any knowledge of alchemy.”

“Call it instinct. Kimblee… died strangely. I don’t like that the timeline for Hugh Maes’s death seems to line up with about the same time in our world that Kimblee was killed. I don’t trust that it’s a coincidence, and I _really_ don’t like that he was with _her_ ,” he says, glaring at the screen. 

“You said she tried to kill Hughes, but you didn’t say how,” Rossi points out. 

“She was closely allied with Bradley, part of his conspiracy. Maes figured out part of the conspiracy, and he was killed for it. But _she_ —” Something in his voice is thick with hate, not merely dislike, it’s sincere hate, and it makes Emily uneasy that she inspires such rage more than a decade later. “—she wasn’t human. She was a homunculus. And she’s the first homunculus that we’ve seen with a counterpart in this world.”

“Was she allied with your Kimblee?” Emily asks, curious. 

“Not directly. As far as I know, Kimblee mostly took orders from Bradley himself or from Pride.”

“Pride?” Rossi asks. “Like the seven deadly sins?”

“That’s actually a common misconception,” Reid says. “They weren’t originally ‘sins’ but vices, the most common sources of sin. They aren’t in and of themselves sins according to traditional teachings—” He cuts himself off, realizing he might be getting off topic. 

“We don’t have Christianity in our world, but Ed and I did come across the coincidence,” Mustang says. “Regardless, a reflection of a homunculus being involved with Kimblee makes me uneasy, even if, to the best of my knowledge, Lust never met Kimblee.”

“She was called Lust?” Seaver asks, speaking up for the first time. 

Mustang’s eyes slide over to her. “She was.” He thought for a moment. “We should look into if she had any siblings. The homunculi treated one another like a dysfunctional family. We may find other counterparts.”

“Hold on,” Reid says. “Even if we do, what difference does it make?” 

Rossi leans back. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that even _if_ there are other reflections or counterparts, does it matter? How do we know that these counterparts have done anything wrong? Why even assume that they are? Just because their counterparts in your world were awful people doesn’t necessarily follow that they will be awful here. We have two examples, yes, but with the number of counterparts there could be, we can’t just judge these people guilty based on the sins of other versions of themselves.”

“He’s right,” Seaver says. “We can’t just assume they’re guilty by association.” 

Mustang sighs and looks at Hughes, who shrugs. “I don’t like the precedent so far. Hughes and his reflection seem similar in temperament. Your version of Tucker makes me uneasy, and now Kimblee and Lust… though…” he trails off. 

“Though what?” Emily prods after a moment. 

“Maes, did you ever look into Shou Tucker’s wife?” he asks. 

Hughes frowns, then the frown turns into a grimace. “I did, but it didn’t yield much information. I didn’t find any family who we could inform.”

“Yes, but what was her name? Do you remember?”

He thinks for a moment, then says, “Rochelle. Her name was Rochelle. Why?”

“Can we have Miss Garcia pull a picture for us?” Mustang asks Emily. 

“Yes, but why?”

“Rachel Alderman—she might have changed her name when she married, but that should be her maiden name.”

“Do you know how many Rachel Aldermans there could be?” Rossi asks. 

“Never mind,” Roy says, pulling out his phone. “I think I have—here it is,” he says, then flips the phone around and hands it to Hughes. “ Did you find a picture of her? Is that her?” 

Hughes’s eyebrows raise in surprise at the picture, but he nods. “Her hair is styled differently, but yeah, that looks like her. Why?”

“Because the little girl Ed is holding? That’s her daughter Nina. The stuffed dog? It’s named Alexander. That’s her wife Evvie there.”

Hughes looks up, looking stunned, and meets Mustang’s eyes. “So it’s not just a few.”

“What are you talking about?” Emily asks. 

Mustang takes the phone back and passes it to her without protest. Ed is in the center of the picture with two women and an infant in his arms. He points to the woman with thick brown hair in a mass of frizzy curls. “This is Rachel Alderman. I met her in DC last month when Ed and I went to the museums there and ran into one of my coworkers and her family. In our world, she was married to our version of Tucker Maes.”

Emily didn’t want to ask, but she knew she needed to know. “What happened to her?”

“Shou Tucker, in a desperate bid to become a State Alchemist and create a talking chimera, combined her with a pet dog. He said she left him. The chimera said only ‘I want to die,’ and starved itself to death, but it was still the first successful account of creating a chimera with human-like intelligence and the ability to speak. He was given his certification and called the Sewing-Life Alchemist. To the best of my knowledge, no one suspected what he had done.”

Emily’s mouth waters with the tang of bile, and she can’t bring herself to ask about the little girl with big green eyes, who looks so happy in Ed’s arms. 

Rossi asks for her. “And Nina?” he asks. 

“His daughter. Alexander was their pet dog. I sent Ed to stay with him, because he was the only certified State Alchemist I knew of who had done any kind of living transmutation.” He swallows hard. “State Alchemists are recertified every year. For combat alchemists like myself and Ed, recertification is a formality, but a theoretical alchemist like Tucker? They have to show progress in their research. Tucker hadn’t for more than two years.”

“He used his daughter, didn’t he?” Seaver says, grim but not surprised. 

“Ed found Nina. She recognized him, and he knew right away what Tucker had done.”

“This is Nina?” Emily asks, her hand shaking as she gives him the phone back. 

“We believe so. I didn’t know if Rachel could be it for sure, but the chances of another little girl being called Nina with a stuffed dog named Alexander… It seems like perhaps the universe has given them a better chance here.”

“But Crawford isn’t Gracia,” Hughes says.

“She’s not,” Mustang agrees. “Maybe your counterpart would have married her. Maybe Elicia’s counterpart would have been born to them? Maybe they would have divorced and he would have met his Gracia some other way. Maybe Elicia has completely different parents in this world. After all, you weren’t related to Shou Tucker in ours.”

The idea seems to physically pain Hughes. “I don’t want to know,” he says after a moment. “I just want to get home to my wife and daughter. If we need to track down other counterparts to do it, then that’s what we need to do.” 

“Why do you think the other counterparts are so important?” Emily can’t help but ask. 

“Because I think Kimblee knows something about our world,” he says, bending over the laptop and zooming in on one of the images Penelope sent. There, in chalk on the side of the guardrail, is what looks like half a circle and half a triangle. “Because this was part of his array. If he isn’t Kimblee himself… I think there’s a good chance he taught our Tucker what he knows. He was definitely exposed to human transmutation, and I won’t even try to guess at what Truth may have poured into his head if he somehow crossed between worlds. Either way… I don’t like how centralized all these counterparts are. It’s too much of a coincidence that they’re all within geographical reach of Ed and I. And teaching someone this kind of alchemy without taking the risk of performing it himself is definitely the kind of chaos that Kimblee would love. He’s the type to throw gas on a fire to see the shape of the flame that comes from it.”

“Great,” Emily hears herself say faintly. “So we have a psychopath who may or may not have taught more than one person alchemy.”

“And alchemy is working now,” Mustang says. “If he taught anyone else…”

“We may have a lot more bodies to worry about,” Rossi concludes, running a hand over his face. 

Emily swallows back the bile by sheer will. “Seaver, please work with Mr. Hughes and go over the hitchhiker case with a fine-tooth comb. I want to know why they didn’t hit the BAU’s radar ten years ago anyway. Rossi, Reid, circle back with Crawford and any other locals. We need to know _everything_ about Tucker Maes. Mustang, you’re with me. I need you to tell me _everything_ you know about Kimblee and Lust and how they operated. _Everything_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I tie this back to Emotional Visits and Giving Thanks? I sure did (if you are wondering where Nina and Rachel came from).


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hours later, Emily has to give Mustang and Hughes some credit—they are thorough. They’re smart too, which she supposes shouldn’t surprise her.

Hours later, Emily has to give Mustang and Hughes some credit—they are thorough. They’re smart too, which she supposes shouldn’t surprise her. She has a good feel for how intelligent Elric is, and she knows damn well that he doesn’t suffer idiots gladly. That he would surround himself with people who are at least as competent as the rest of the BAU makes sense. 

Mustang has actually passed out sitting up in his chair, and Emily can’t quite bring herself to wake him up and give him shit for it, tempting though it is.

“Give him ten,” Hughes says, coming over and sitting by her. “He’ll be right as rain and ready to go for another five or six hours if you need him to.”

“Know something about long hours and urgency, I see,” she comments. 

“We do,” Hughes agrees. His expression is fond as he looks at Mustang. “He’s hiding it well, but he’s worried sick about Edward. It’s made him less personable than he usually tries to be when working with other groups.” 

Eager for a distraction, even if it’s one that’s just irritating rather than terrifying, she says, “You got over your outrage pretty quickly.”

Hughes gives her a lazy and indulgent smile. “The last time I saw Edward, he was fifteen, and he didn’t put up with shit from anyone, least of all an adult male.”

“I have noticed Elric’s issues with male authority figures. Obviously there’s some issues with his father or father figure in his past.”

“Nail on the head,” Hughes says with a toothy grin. “His dad took off without warning when Edward and Alphonse were… five and four? A year later, his mom got sick and died. He harbors some pretty intense hate of his father for leaving their mother to die, even though he probably couldn’t have known.”

“He still around?” Emily asks. “Elric’s father?”

“You’d have to ask Roy. What little I know, Alphonse explained. Edward can’t talk about his father without dissolving into near incoherent rage or shutting down completely—at least last time I asked. If that’s improved at all, you’d have to ask Roy.” 

“Alphonse is Elric’s brother?”

“His precious little brother—who’s probably bigger than he is.”

Emily shook her head. “I can’t imagine two of them.”

Hughes laughs. “Edward and Alphonse are nearly polar opposites. It still baffles me that Ed mostly raised him, but Al’s got perfect manners. They’re both stubborn as hell though. Ed’s more obvious about it, but I wouldn’t want to stand between Alphonse and a goal, either. Both of them are driven.”

“Driven?” Emily says, leaning back and stretching her neck and shoulders. “I’m not sure that’s the word I’d use for him.”

“Really?” Hughes asks, obviously surprised. 

“Really,” she says. “He’s…” she pauses to think about it. “He loves a puzzle, but I don’t think he sees what we do as much of a challenge. Even though what we do is taking people apart, understanding how they think, he just… doesn’t think it’s that hard or that remarkable.”

Hughes smiles. “That sounds like Edward, though I’ll admit that I’m a little surprised that he’s managed to apply his brilliance toward people.” He glances over at Mustang. “Understanding what makes people think has always been Roy’s area of expertise. Though, I suppose if they’ve been together for nearly a decade, then Edward would have certainly picked up things from Roy.” 

Emily’s distaste must show on her face. 

“What did Roy do to put such a bad taste in your mouth?” Hughes asks, still more amused than not. Emily can tell he’s the type of person who copes with laughter and jokes, but they haven’t missed the keen eyes and the keener mind behind them. 

“It’s not really anything he did, specifically,” she says. 

“Hmm…” Hughes hums thoughtfully. “So it really is just that he’s involved with Edward then?” 

“You’re a father,” Emily says, remembering Hughes saying something about his daughter. “Would you be okay with your daughter being involved with a thirty-year-old man when she was sixteen?”

“I’d slit his fucking throat,” Hughes says with a grin that has more of an edge on it than she’s seen before, and she’s suddenly very sure that he would do exactly that. It’s gone within moments, softening into something gentler, more sincere before he looks up at the ceiling again. “But my beautiful, perfect Elicia will never live the kind of life Edward has. At least, I pray she never does. Hopefully, when she’s sixteen, she’ll just be discovering boys or girls, still wanting to play dress-up, hopefully she still likes baking with her mom. In other words, Elicia will still be a child.” 

He turns to face her again and says, “I don’t think Edward has been a child since he attempted human transmutation. That Gate that Roy speaks about? It cracked Edward’s mind open and poured information I don’t think any human should ever possess into it.” His face goes solemn. “A child wouldn’t have the sense of mind to create a new array in the wake of just losing his leg. A child wouldn’t offer his right arm in exchange for his brother’s soul.” He sighs heavily. “I never saw what Roy did, what was left of the array, what happened to the thing it created—and from my understanding, it  _ was _ a thing. I know that what was  _ left _ gave Roy nightmares for weeks after he returned to East City. I can’t speak to what Edward went through that night, but I can tell you, after it? He wasn’t a child anymore.”

“How old was he?” Emily asks. 

Hughes blinks, thinking. “When he committed the taboo?" She nods. "Thirteen,” he says. Emily is sure he’s lying, even though he’s decent at it, which means Elric was probably younger than he wants to admit. That doesn’t make her feel any better, but she doesn’t call him on it.

“And Mustang?”

Hughes shrugs, the smile back in place, a more obvious mask for having been shown what is behind it. “Roy had sort of a unique upbringing. He understands better than most that age is just a number. If Edward decided that Roy was what he wanted, well… Have you ever seen anyone successfully stand between Edward Elric and a goal?”

“No,” Rossi says, showing he was eavesdropping. “I haven’t.”

“Then why do you assume that Roy was any more resistant to the force of nature that is Edward Elric than anyone else?” 

Rossi chuckles, though it rings with the punch drunkenness of exhaustion. “Force of nature is a good way to describe him,” he says. He runs a hand over his face. “I’m surprised that he’s slept through this.”

Head swimming with far too many revelations about things that she barely understands, Emily says, “Actually, I’m not sure he doesn’t have the right idea.” She pauses as a yawn finds its way out of her. “Even we have to sleep. We should probably head back to the motel. Seaver, you can stay with me. Reid, are you good with Hughes? Rossi, you got Mustang?”

“That’s fine with me,” Rossi says. 

Hughes frowns. “Wouldn’t it be just as easy to have me and Roy share a room?”

“Reid usually rooms with Morgan, since they’re together. I share with JJ, Ed bunks with Rossi. Since Seaver and I are the only women, it makes sense for us to share. That leaves Reid and Rossi with open bunks.”

“Well, yes, but wouldn’t it make more sense to stay with one another?” Hughes asks as if the question is totally innocent. 

“You can keep playing the idiot card all you like, Mr. Hughes,” Rossi says. “We aren’t buying it. If it’s all the same to you, I think I speak for all of us when I say we’d rather have the two of you under our observation. If you find that objectionable, I’m sure the good folks here could spare a couple cells for you two to occupy.”

Hughes puts his hands up defensively, laughing with a nervous edge to it. “No, that won’t be necessary,” he says. “I have no desire to spend my first night alive sleeping in a prison cell. Roy and I can certainly catch up later.”

“I’ll call Garcia and let her know we’re calling it a night,” Reid says, rubbing at his eyes. He looks exhausted, rings growing beneath his eyes that she hasn’t seen in some time. He’s also slouching more than she’s seen recently, pulling in on himself, closing himself down. Emily knows it’s because he’s just as stressed out about Morgan missing as they are about Ed and JJ. It’s different, when it’s your significant other involved. 

“ _ Shit _ ,” Emily hisses. 

“What?” Hughes startles to attention, assessing the room for potential threats with a practiced eye. 

“Will,” she says. 

Rossi’s face tightens as he frowns, and Reid looks just as upset. 

“Who?” Hughes asks. 

“JJ’s husband,” Emily says, looking at Rossi and Reid. “Should we tell him?  _ What _ should we tell him? JJ usually at least sends him a text at night to let him know she’s okay. Honestly, I’m surprised he hasn’t pinged one of us yet.” 

Reid’s cell goes off, and he sighs in relief. “That’s because Garcia has us covered. She says to have a good night and that she already sent a text to Will letting him know that JJ was going to be out of reach until tomorrow.” He raises a sardonic eyebrow. “So she’s given us until tomorrow to figure out what to tell him, at least.”

Emily sighs. “It’s something. We can talk over what we want to tell Will on the way to the motel,” she says, reaching into her pocket, checking to make sure she still has the keys for the rental. She tosses a, “Wake him up, will you?” to Hughes. 

“Roy,” Hughes says, shaking his shoulder. His head falls back, but he stays deeply asleep. Hughes frowns, reaching over, feeling Mustang’s neck, checking his face. “His pulse is strong. There’s no fever.” He frowns. “But the Roy I know doesn’t sleep this deeply.” He shakes him again. “Roy, wake up!” he says a little louder. “Colonel Mustang!” he snaps, but there’s still no response, no groan or mumble, nothing but the deep, even breathing of sound sleep. 

.o0o.o0o.o0o.

“So, you two have been helping keep my kid in line?” a medium-skinned woman with long locks pulled into a ponytail says, startling JJ. She and Derek have been keeping somewhat to the fringes, the press of so many strangers in this place they don’t know, can’t know, making them both a little uneasy. “I’m sorry—I thought Ed’s mother was—” she starts, feeling confused. 

“Long dead? She is. But make no mistake, those boys are mine as much as they were hers,” she says, unyielding, obvious pride in her voice. Her back is straight, her chin held high. She’s not a large woman, but her presence, the way she seems to fill a space, push people out of her space with pure force of personality reminds JJ of Ed. “JJ and Morgan, right?” she asks. 

“Yes, I’m JJ,” she holds out her hand. The woman takes it with a firm, sure grip, then moves to Derek as he introduces himself. 

“Izumi Curtis,” she introduces herself. 

“So you’re an alchemist?” Derek asks. 

“I’m just an average housewife, but I also happen to be an alchemist.”

JJ would dearly like to exchange a look with Derek because she’s absolutely sure that this woman is  _ anything _ but average if she taught Ed. Judging by how the locals are treating Al, JJ suspects that he’s just as much a prodigy and just as difficult to handle. 

“When did you meet Ed?” JJ asks instead. 

“Those hooligans nagged me to teach them alchemy when they were… eight and nine?” She looks over to where Ed is sat, still holding Eden in his arms. Except for letting JJ and Derek hold her, he’s barely relinquished her all evening. The proud smile fades into something softer and a little sadder. “Those cheeky brats.”

“How long did you teach them?” JJ asks. 

“Just two years,” she replies, wistful. “But they’re mine, all the same.”

“I can see that,” JJ says, because she can. The pride and strength this woman holds herself with is the same that Ed does.

“Do you have any children?” Mrs. Curtis asks. 

“Two. Two boys.” 

Derek puts his hands up when Mrs. Curtis looks at him. “None for me yet.”

Her attention moves back to JJ. “So you understand, then? That you’ll do absolutely anything for your children?”

JJ meets her dark, fathomless eyes and nods. “Yes, I do,” she says. 

Mrs. Curtis nods like a question has been answered. “Ed and Al will get you home to your sons,” she says it like a promise. “They’ll get you both home, and Ed will get his man back.”

“You have an awful lot of faith in him,” Derek observes. 

She grins, a wolfish, fierce grin that they’ve seen on Ed countless times. “If you’ve seen your boy beat a god, is it really faith?” she asks. Before JJ or Derek can think of anything to say in response, her smile softens again, and she adds, “And look at that boy. Falling asleep even among all of this, even with the baby in his arms. Excuse me.” She pats JJ’s shoulder, then makes a beeline for Ed, swooping Eden out of his arms. He doesn’t seem to flinch. 

“That’s not right,” JJ says, standing. 

“No, it is not,” Derek agrees, and they begin to push their way through the crowd. They aren’t the only ones who have noticed though. Al is already there. 

“Brother?” he asks, shaking Ed’s shoulder. His head rolls back, unresponsive. 

“Clear a path!” Derek shouts, and they break through.

JJ goes straight to Ed, crouching and checking his vitals. She breathes a sigh of relief when she finds both his pulse and his breathing strong and steady. 

“His vitals seem normal,” JJ says, mostly for Derek’s benefit. “Ed!” she snaps in her best  _ mom _ tone, the one that Ed usually responds to. “ _ Edward _ !” 

He doesn’t respond, not even with a sigh. 

“Agent Jareau,” Al says, sounding far more in control than she’d expect. She turns to look at him, and he’s holding Ed’s wrist for her to see. 

The wrist with the tattoo Ed said linked his soul to Mustang’s. 

The tattoo that is glowing with a soft, deep ruby light. 

“I don’t think he’s drugged, Agent Jareau,” Al says, solemn. 

Derek moves forward. “Let’s get him out of here. He doesn’t need to be exposed like this.” 

A monster of a man with a beard steps forward. “Let me,” he says, scooping Ed up like he weighs nothing. Ed looks almost like a child in his arms. 

“Why don’t you take him back to our rooms, honey?” Mrs. Curtis suggests. “It’s been a long day for everyone. We don’t want to panic people.”

“I’ll go with you,” Mei says, holding her arms out for Eden, who had apparently fallen asleep in Ed’s arms but is starting to make sounds that JJ recognizes as hungry. “We can get you all settled in rooms, and I need to feed Eden anyway.” 

JJ takes a deep breath and nods. “Okay,” she says. “Lead the way.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 50k. _Finally_ this day is almost over...


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A kiss on the nape of his neck and fingers skittering over his ribs wakes Ed up.

A kiss on the nape of his neck and fingers skittering over his ribs wakes Ed up. He flinches from the fingertips, trying not to laugh. 

“Stop,” he says, trying to pull away only to have Roy’s hand tighten on his hip. “Sadist,” he accuses. 

Roy hums, nuzzling the join between his neck and shoulder. “You like it,” he replies. 

“I do  _ not _ like being tickled!” Ed argues, squirming to roll over and face Roy. It’s hard to be taken seriously when he’s fighting down a grin. He might have been better off staying facing  _ away  _ from Roy, actually, but for some reason, Ed really wants to see his face. Roy easily resettles his hand on Ed’s hip, thumb rubbing gently across the unscarred skin there. He’s smiling softly, his lazy, Sunday-morning smile, as Ed has taken to calling it. 

“Have I told you lately you’re infuriating when you’re smug?” Ed asks. 

Roy’s grin goes from lazy to arrogant, and it’s all Ed can do not to laugh with it. “It  _ has _ been a while,” Roy says. 

He’s beautiful in the early morning sun—not that Roy Mustang is ever not beautiful. Hair sleep mussed, the glare of it hiding the grays Ed has noticed starting to come in, the indulgent happiness relaxing the lines on his face, though? Those things make him both real and almost a dream. It figures that  _ of course _ Roy Mustang would age gracefully, with the kind of dignity most men can only hope to. If Ed’s lucky enough to have to worry about it, he’s sure that he’s going to turn into the kind of hunched, crotchety old man who yells at asshole kids to get off his lawn, telling them about how he did things in the “good old days.” 

The mental image makes him snicker, and Roy lets go of his hip to brush some of his bangs away from his face. 

“What are you chuckling about?” Roy asks, his voice as soft and tender as his touch, an empathetic smile pulling at his own lips. 

“Me as a grumpy old man,” Ed admits. “Everyone’s gonna wonder why the fuck you saddled yourself with me.” 

“They will wonder how I ever won you over,” Roy says, moving on from stroking Ed’s bangs, down his neck, then over his shoulder. His touch is light, not quite enough to tickle, just on the edge. He’s laying on his right side, automail arm jammed under the pillow to soften it, so Roy is playing over his flesh shoulder, though he dips down to trace the occasional scar. Roy has a few scars—most notably the burn scar from cauterizing his own damn wound—but nothing like Ed’s collection. 

“You’re not still mad at me?” Ed asks. He’s not entirely sure where the question comes from, just that he’s relieved down to his core to have Roy looking at him like this, touching him like this. That usually means they’ve had a fight, but what it was about is alluding him at the moment. 

Roy’s brow furrows, confusion darkening his eyes. “Why would I be mad at you?” he asks. 

Ed deflects. “You mean you don’t have a standing reason?”

It’s the wrong tack to take because Roy sits up, looking concerned now. “I’m…” he trails, the concern melding into confusion. “I don’t think I’m angry with you,” he says. He doesn’t look convinced though, which is not especially encouraging. 

Sighing, Ed makes himself sit up too. His hair is loose, which is probably a sign of sex before they went to bed—he doesn’t usually go to bed with it down, but it definitely happens when he falls asleep after sex since Roy is such a sucker for his hair. When he takes stock though, he doesn’t really  _ feel  _ like they had sex the night before. The gross, went-to-bed-sweaty-and-didn’t-bother-to-do-more than-wipe-off-shit feeling isn’t there, neither are the telltale lingering physical signs. No new bruises—though, really, they try not to do that too often these days, if Ed’s team ever saw them, they’d freak the fuck out—no soreness, good or otherwise. He feels like he slept well.

On a whim, he pulls his hair over his shoulder, and it spills down his chest like a perfect cascade, a tiny bit of a wave from his usual braid permanently kinked into it, but his fingers don’t find a snarl, knot, or tangle as he runs them through it. That’s not normal. His hair is  _ always  _ a disaster if he falls asleep with it down. 

“Roy?” he asks, feeling increasingly unsettled. 

Roy is frowning, thoughtful now, the military veteran coming to the forefront in a way that Ed doesn’t see much these days. “We argued,” he says, but it’s almost a question. 

“Yeah,” Ed replies, “‘Cause that’s real unusual for us.” He’s aiming for flippant, but he doesn’t quite think he hit it. 

Reaching out, Roy runs his fingers down through Ed’s hair, well aware of the rat’s nest it should be, but just as Ed’s did, his fingers slide through without a catch. 

“It wasn’t an argument,” Roy says, eyes distant, as if he’s digging through memories. “It was a… disagreement?”

“Did we get drunk last night or something, ‘cause I don’t remember a fucking thing before we went to bed,” Ed says, reaching for options but not at all happy with the ones he’s finding. 

But Roy is shaking his head, already dismissing it. “No,” he says. Of course not. Roy almost never drinks, even at home, and Ed doesn’t let him drink till he’s drunk, and Ed’s too much of a control freak to  _ get  _ drunk. It’s not like them at all. Why does his head feel so damn fuzzy? Why does he feel like important memories are like sand, slipping through his fingers more the more desperately he tries to cling to them?  


When Roy runs a hand through his own hair, Ed notices something he hadn’t before. He reaches out to pull Roy’s hand to him, looking at the back. There’s a scar in the center of the back of his hand, and when Ed turns his hand over, there’s a matching scar in the palm. Ed grabs Roy’s other hand and the scarred array is more detailed and visible than it’s been in years. It’s also pierced by another scar in the center that matches another one in the palm. 

“Your scars are wrong,” Ed says, tracing the outline of Roy’s familiar array. It’s not just that it's more visible, the scar is raised and far more noticeable than Ed ever remembers it being. Roy had never carved the array deeply; Ed’s fingers rarely even found it. And the scars through his hands? He never  _ had  _ them. Marco had used his Philosopher’s Stone to heal those. 

Roy moves Ed’s bangs aside and traces where Ed knows he once had a scar across his brow.

“Yours are too,” he says. 

Ed scrambles and lifts the edge of Roy’s shirt, and sure enough, the cauterization scar is far darker and more severe than it is in real life—

It clicks together. 

_ In real life _ . “This isn’t real,” he says. It can’t be real. As if the realization is a catalyst, Ed starts remembering where he actually is, where Roy is, what has happened in the last week. Fuck, was it really less than a week ago that they had their fight? It feels like it’s been so much longer. 

“It’s not real,” Ed repeats, feeling panicked. He doesn’t dream like this. This is too real. This is their bed in their room in their house. 

Roy reaches and cups the back of Ed’s head, pulling him close. Ed takes a deep breath, fighting down the panic, and Roy  _ smells like Roy.  _ Even after all these years without access to alchemy, there’s a scent of ash and fire that seems like it’s burned into Roy’s very being. It’s hidden beneath newer scents—the clean, unscented laundry detergent they use, Roy’s rich tobacco cologne that has sharp notes of blackberry and vanilla if you breathe it in deeply enough. Always, though, beneath that, there is always the lingering shadow of fire and burning things that is just  _ Roy _ . 

“Breathe, Ed,” Roy says, making him realize that he hasn’t let out a breath since he inhaled, trying to prove to himself this isn’t real. Roy’s strength, the weight of his hand, the cadence of his heart beneath Ed’s ear, they are  _ perfect.  _ How could anyone get those details right? How could it possibly be right? 

“This  _ isn’t real, _ ” Ed tells him again. 

“It’s not  _ not real _ either,” Roy says, far more calm than he has any fucking right to be. But he’s also still holding Ed close to him, has his own face buried in the crook of Ed’s shoulder, breathing in Ed just as Ed had done.

“How the fuck can you know that?” Ed demands. 

“Because I have never had a dream this real,” Roy says. One of his hands runs down Ed’s flesh arm, not stopping until their fingers are tangled together, then he raises their hands, and the arrays on their wrists touch.

Just like that, all the memories that had been evading Ed’s attempts to wrangle them are back. He remembers their fight clearly, he remembers being in that nowhere fucking town in Pennsylvania, remembers confronting Truth  _ again,  _ and he slumps into Roy, the strength gone from him. 

Only with Roy has he ever truly let himself be weak. 

“Fuck, I miss you,” Ed says into Roy’s chest. 

He feels it lift with a silent sigh as Roy’s arm tightens around his waist. 

“I’ve missed you too.”

“I don’t want you to be mad anymore.”

“I want you to value your own life as much as you value others’,” Roy replies, but it’s tired and not hurt anymore. It’s a step in the right direction, and Ed will take it. 

“I do,” he says, but even as he does, it feels like a lie on his tongue. 

“You don’t,” Roy says, a simple statement, not an accusation. “But we’re all still works in progress.”

The silence is oddly peaceful, comfortable. After nearly a decade together, they don’t need to fill the silences anymore. Sometimes just being  _ with  _ one another is enough, and Roy isn’t letting go of him, so Ed takes that as another win. 

As much as part of him wants to do nothing more than relax and lose himself in Roy’s arms, there are more important issues to take care of. Other problems to address. 

“Am I forgiven?” he asks, trying not to let his automail rip Roy’s shirt to shreds with how tightly he’s gripping it. 

Roy sighs again. “Will you do it again?” he asks with the kind of tone that says he knows the answer. 

Ed pulls back a little bit, not because he wants a millimeter more between them than absolutely necessary but because he needs to look Roy in the eyes as he says this. “I will do  _ everything _ in my power to make my way home to you. Always. If you believe in nothing else, please believe that.”

They hold one another’s gazes for a long moment, but the tension goes out of Roy as if he can’t bear to hold it anymore. 

“I believe in you, Ed,” he says. “I always have.”

Ed knows that, knows that the only people who have ever had more faith in him than Roy are Al and Winry, and they’re both fools twice over for it. There are also probably no other people Ed loves as much as he loves them, so perhaps it’s fitting that the fool he’s in love with believes in him when Ed isn’t certain he should. 

“I know,” he says, dropping his forehead to Roy’s collar this time. “I know you do.” 

Roy’s hand moves up to rub at the spot between his shoulder blades, where he carries the worst of the tension from his automail arm and the muscles are always doing their best to imitate cement blocks. 

“Do you know where we are?” Roy asks. 

Ed shakes his head against Roy’s collar. “But I think we’re really here. I think it’s you and me, I mean.”

“How can we be so sure that this isn’t a dream?” Roy asks. 

Sitting back to look Roy in the face again, he says, “Have you had dreams like this?”

“You mean dreams where we are together and not angry and hurt anymore?” Roy replies, his features softening with self-deprecation. 

“Dreams where we talk like this?”

“Dreams where I’ve said I love you? That I can’t live without you? That I beg you not to make me live without you? Dreams like that?”

It makes Ed’s heart ache. It echoes the dreams Ed’s had, nightmares, really, where he begs Roy not to leave him, not to give up on him, to please give him another chance. 

“Dreams where we actually  _ talk  _ about it?” Ed asks, forcing the words past the pleas that want to spill from his throat. “Dreams where we both agree that I fucked up and that I promise I’ll do better? Be better?”

Roy cups his face. “You don’t need to  _ be _ better,” he says, eyes full of pain again, pain that  _ Ed _ put there, and he hates it,  _ hates it _ so much. Why does he always hurt the people he loves the most? Why are they always the ones who pay for his mistakes? “Just… if not for yourself, value your life as you value mine. Because it  _ is,  _ Ed. If I lost you, that would end me. Do you understand that?”

He thinks he knew that, somewhere in the depths of his heart. Never has he wanted to hear those words spoken though, and he wants to tell Roy that there has to be more to live for in life than just  _ Ed _ because Ed is so fucked up and unreliable. Ed is not someone you build a life on and around. 

Except Roy would probably say the same if Ed asks. Roy would say that he’s too ambitious, too single-minded, that he’s going to put his goals before his people, even though it’s a lie; Ed knows it’s a lie, even if maybe Roy doesn’t. 

He laughs, humorless, helpless, but it feels like relief, like an array that he’s been fiddling with for years and hasn’t been able to make work click into place. All the sudden, it makes sense. Ed doesn’t know what he’d do if he lost Roy, except it’d be astonishingly stupid, and Ed wouldn’t hesitate to pay whatever toll it cost. 

All those words and feelings are too much to explain, so he simply says, “I love you too, bastard.” He smiles as he says it, because it’s true. “And I’m not going to leave if I have anything to say about it. You’re not allowed to leave me either.”

Caution wars with hope in Roy’s eyes, but he nods after a moment. “An overdue bargain, I think,” he says, bowing his forehead to lean against Ed’s. 

They soak one another’s presence in for another moment before Ed realizes that he has no idea how long they have. 

“Where are you?” Ed asks, and then he gets an odd, disconnected feeling. 

“Small town in Pennsylvania,” Roy says, which is confusing enough that Ed almost doesn’t catch his return question. “You?”

“Xerxes. With JJ and Morgan.”

Roy leans back this time, brow furrowed. “Xerxes?” he asks. 

“Yeah,” Ed says. He opens his mouth to say more, when pain rips through him. He tries to hold onto Roy, but there is no resisting that pain. Their hands are yanked apart and the house shatters around them. Ed sees the terror on Roy's face as they're separated. "I'll find a way back!" he yells. 

That will not be the last time he sees Roy's face. Ed is going to find a way back if it kills him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you miss Roy and Ed together? I sure did. Yes, this is too short.


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> JJ does not like the fact that Ed won’t wake up at all, and the only consolation to that fact is the fact that no one else seems happier about it than she is. 

JJ does not like the fact that Ed won’t wake up at all, and the only consolation to that fact is the fact that no one else seems happier about it than she is. 

“Are you sure you don’t want me to try—?” Mei offers again, but Al shakes his head. 

“Would it hurt to let her try?” JJ asks, still trying to understand everything that’s going on with this alchemy stuff. 

Al is sitting on the bed next to Ed who may as well be in a coma for how reactive he’s being. He holds Ed’s glowing wrist in his hand and is frowning. “Soul alchemy isn’t my area of specialty,” he admits. “Mixing our alchemy and alkahestry together can be chancy under the best of circumstances. I don’t want to risk it with soul alchemy.” He looks at Mei. “You’re sure his qi systems aren’t compromised?” 

To her credit, she doesn’t huff or sigh. “As far as I can tell, all his qi systems appear to be functioning normally. It’s just that array that’s drawing unusual energy.” 

JJ would give a  _ lot _ to have Spencer here to translate. She’s sure she’s heard of qi systems in their world, in other contexts, but she doesn’t remember the details about them or know how closely the idea of them in their world might align with what Mei and Al are describing. 

There’s a knock at the door before Mrs. Curtis lets herself in. “Still out?” she asks.

“He’s still unresponsive,” Derek says, his own frustration and helplessness barely kept at bay in his voice. “Can you do anything to help?” 

“You tried beating the shit out of him yet?” she asks Al. 

“I don’t think that’s really necessary—” JJ starts to say when Al interrupts with a sigh.

“I gave him a few good slaps, splashed his face with water, made a lot of loud noise, shook him really hard.” He ticks them off on his hand. “Not even a flinch so far.” 

Mrs. Curtis sighs, then stalks over to Ed, lifts him by the collar of his shirt, and yells, “Wake the fuck up!” in his face while shaking him violently enough to send both JJ and Derek reaching to stop her. When she stops, Ed’s head simply rolls back alarmingly.

“When I asked if you could do something, I didn’t mean give him brain damage!” Derek snaps.

She drops him like a sack of potatoes, and Ed still doesn’t move from where he’s sprawled. It’s unnerving, to say the least. 

“He’s got a hard head,” Mrs. Curtis says. “Being shaken like a rattle isn’t going to give him more brain damage than he’s already got.”

“I meant--can you do something with alchemy?” Derek says through gritted teeth. “You’re his teacher, so surely you must know more about alchemy than he does.”

Her dark eyes wander back to Ed and alight on the still softly glowing array on his wrist. 

“The days when I knew more of alchemy than Edward Elric are long past,” she says with a kind of remorse. She goes back to him, arranging him on the bed so he’s not in such a haphazard and uncomfortable-looking position. Her hand hovers over the array but pulls back without touching it. “This young man has stood before Truth more than possibly any other living being ever has.” She strokes a bang back from Ed’s face in a very maternal gesture. “Even if that weren’t the case, soul alchemy is particularly specialized. I never had a reason to study or learn any of it. There’s not much good you can do with it.” 

“Why does Ed know it so well, if it’s not actually useful?” JJ asks. 

“Ah, that’s my fault—” Al starts, scratching at his neck in embarrassment. “Did Brother tell how he lost his arm and leg?” he asks. 

“He said that it happened when he tried to resurrect his mom, and that it almost cost him you,” Derek recites dutifully. 

“It did,” Al says. “It took my whole body. To save me, Brother sacrificed his arm to get my soul back, and he bound it to a suit of armor that was in our father’s study.”

JJ stares in horror because she can’t even wrap her mind around the idea. 

“Wait,” Derek says. “What do you mean when you say ‘he sacrificed his arm’?”

“Exactly what I said,” Al replies. “Attempting human transmutation is a horrible sin against nature. The dead are not meant to be returned. There is nothing that is equivalent to a human soul. In retaliation for our hubris, Truth took Brother’s left leg and my whole body. When Brother returned to this plane, he reactivated the array and offered his right arm to retrieve my soul.”

If JJ were horrified before, she doesn’t have a word to adequately describe her feelings now. “I thought he was eleven…” she said faintly, doing the math. 

“He was,” Al says. “I don’t know how he had the presence of mind to offer his arm for me.”

Derek looks as sick as she feels. “The first time I ever talked to him… I said that people would give their right arm for the job,” he says, leaning heavily against the wall. “No wonder he laughed at me.”

Al smiles, a little bit rueful. “That expression does tend to mean something different to Brother than it means for most,” he admits. 

“He was just a baby,” JJ says faintly, staring at Ed’s still form on the bed, eyes drawn helplessly to the metal arm stretched out next to him.

“Not after that, he wasn’t,” Mrs. Curtis says, frowning and sorrowful all at once. “Going through the Gate changes a person, forever. There’s the person you were before you stood before Truth, and there’s the person you are after. Children don’t come out of it.”

“Did you…?” JJ starts to ask, but Mrs. Curtis meets her eyes, and the question dies in JJ’s mouth. It’s not her place to ask, and besides, it’s clear that she already has the answer. She doesn’t ask why Mrs. Curtis tried to do, who she tried to bring back. Given the way she is with Ed and Al, JJ thinks she already knows. 

A knock on the door followed by a, “I’m coming in!” interrupts the heavy atmosphere. The blonde young woman from earlier—Wendy?--steps in. “Oh,” she says, seeing Ed. “He’s still out cold then?”

“Yeah,” Al tells her. “Do you have any ideas? We’ve tried slapping him and shaking him. I’m not sure a wrench will work, but he’s not responding at all.”

She looks thoughtful for a moment. “Did you try reattaching his automail?” she asks. 

Several people have  _ duh _ looks on their faces, as if they should have thought of that. 

“The armor is meant to come off, right?” JJ asks, feeling nervous for some reason, trying to remember back to what Ed had told them about it. She is pretty sure that he said something about it being painful, but she can’t remember if that was the surgery that was painful or attaching in general that is painful. 

“Of course they are!” Wendy says, sounding scandalized. “How else do you maintenance them and get them refitted?” she asks, sitting next to Al and reaching over Ed’s still form to take the automail arm in her hand. She eyes it critically. “It looks like he’s been taking good care of it, but I’m surprised he hasn’t replaced it.”

JJ coughs. “We don’t have prosthetics that advanced in our world,” she says when Wendy’s attention is on her. 

Her eyes go wide, and she looks appalled. “But what if he had broken it?” she asks. 

“I… don’t know,” JJ admits. “I don’t know what he would have done.”

Wendy’s eyes go back to the automail, and she runs her hands over it with familiarity and comfort. She pulls a screwdriver out of somewhere and quickly removes the top plate on the forearm. “He’s done a really good job of keeping it maintained,” she says as if the fact surprises her. 

“Well, if Brother didn’t have any way to replace it if it broke, even he may have been more careful with it than normal,” Al says with a smile that’s just a little bit sad. 

“Does Ed make a habit of breaking his prosthetics?” Derek asks. 

Nodding, Wendy uses the screwdriver to poke at the wires inside the arm. “We used to have to replace them at least a couple times a year. If you’d told me he could go eight years without breaking them, I’d have laughed in your face.”

“Your… family works on automail?” JJ asks carefully, not entirely comfortable watching her poke in the arm with apparently little care. Despite knowing it was a prosthetic, it’s still unnerving to see it open and see only mechanical workings in the arm. Some part of JJ really thought there was flesh beneath the armor, and her brain is having difficulty connecting the inner workings of it with how naturally Ed uses it. 

“Yeah,” Wendy says. “Me and Granny.”

JJ doesn’t have to ask to tell from the sadness in her face and her voice that “Granny” is not with them anymore. “So you’ve been working on your own since she passed?” JJ asks. 

Startling, Wendy puts her hands over her mouth. “He doesn’t know!” She turns to Al, looking upset. “Al, we forgot to tell Ed about Granny!”

“Winry,” Al says, putting a hand on her shoulder. “We have plenty of time to tell him. Let’s worry about waking him up first, okay?”

_ Winry _ , not Wendy—such a strange name—looks back at Ed. She leans over, reaching for something JJ can’t see, and there’s a compressive sound that makes JJ think of a vacuum seal breaking as the arm comes loose. 

“Are you sure that’s okay?” JJ asks, her mind further struggling to see Ed without an arm. She keeps trying to fill in the shape of it, expecting it to be there. It’s one thing to know he wears a prosthetic, but it’s another entirely to see it be detached, and it’s unnerving. 

Looking over the arm more closely, Winry says, “Of course it’s fine,” with the offhand impatience of someone being asked a stupid question. 

“Winry’s been Ed’s mechanic since we were teenagers,” Al informs. JJ is starting to feel like if she keeps staring, her eyes are going to stick like that. 

“So… you just work the automail?” JJ asks her. 

“The automail, the ports, the upgrades,” Winry answers in that same vague way that tells JJ most of her attention is on the arm in her hands. 

“Automail mechanics are both surgeons and mechanics,” Mrs. Curtis explains. “The best ones are, anyway. They not only do the surgeries to attach the nerve ports, but they also build the automail limbs themselves.”

“Winry is one of the best in the country!” Al informs them proudly. 

Running her fingers over the hinges and joins of the prosthetic, Winry says, “I had a really good teacher.” There’s more sorrow there, still fairly fresh at that. She seems to shake herself then, turns, tossing the arm next to Ed again. “I forgot how heavy these alloys were. When I get him refitted, he’s hardly going to believe it.” She says it with the determination of someone redirecting their attention firmly. “Al, you might want to hold him down,” she adds, looking at him. 

Al stands and shifts until he has a firm grip on both of Ed’s shoulders. Mrs. Curtis goes to his legs and pushes down on them. Winry straddles his waist, moving the arm into place, then looks up at Al. “Ready?” she asks. Al nods, and Winry shifts until they hear the arm connect with something that’s almost a compressive sound, but also a mechanical click. 

Whatever happens, it’s painful enough to jolt Ed out of unconsciousness. He makes a choked, bitten-off scream, and why he was being held down is readily apparent as he tries to flail for a moment before going limp.  


“ _ Motherfucker. _ ” He groans, sinking into the bed, looking a little pale as he opens his eyes. JJ’s eyes go to his flesh wrist, but the circle there is no longer glowing. “Winry?” he asks, staring at her like he’s looking at a ghost. 

She sighs heavily, then grabs the front of Ed’s shirt. “About time you woke up, you idiot!” she snaps, shaking him hard. 

“Winry!” Al says, having let go of Ed's shoulders. Before Derek or JJ can do anything, Ed has grabbed her and thrown her down on the bed in some kind of grappling hold. 

“Knock it the fuck off!” he snarls at her. There’s something in his eyes, in his voice that pulls at JJ’s chest, something like loss. He hangs his head and his arms go slack. “Why…? Why did you have to wake me?”

“You weren’t responding, and the soul array on your wrist was glowing,” Al says. “We couldn’t know if it was draining you or hurting you.”

Ed shakes his head. “It wasn’t,” he says. “I saw Roy. Talked to him…” He takes in a harsh breath. “It was real. If the array was active… it was real.” He stills and the pain and despair goes out of him. He looks up a Al. “If the array was active,  _ it was real _ .”

JJ isn’t following, but apparently Al is. “Your soul link is active,” he says, his whole face lighting up. “That means we have a link between the worlds!”

“The door isn’t entirely closed,” Ed agrees, and a fierce determination settles into his eyes. “We have a way through.” 

* * *

It is way too late at night for them still to be at the station, still to be  _ awake _ . Dave is far too  _ old _ to pull these kinds of all-nighters if he doesn’t have to, but Mustang had to magically pass out, and every attempt they’ve made to wake him—from shaking, to shouting, to slapping, to physically dragging him on the ground—have not yielded so much as a flutter of eyelashes. Reid only discovered the glowing tattoo on his wrist when he was checking all of Mustang’s vitals. 

Dave is more than a little relieved that Reid didn’t touch it by accident. Given what happened with the last active array they knew of, who knows what touching the damn thing might have done. 

“I don’t like this,” Hughes repeats, not for the first time, running a hand over his face. He looks as tired as Dave feels, which is little consolation under the circumstances. 

“All of his vital signs are strong,” Reid reminds them. “If you don’t know how to disrupt that array on his wrist or aren’t willing to risk breaking it to stop the energy flow, then I don’t know if we can do anything but wait for him to wake up.”

“I told you—I’m not an alchemist. I have no idea what will happen if we try to interrupt the array, I just know that touching an active array is usually a really, really terrible idea. Most  _ alchemists _ won’t do it.” 

“Would Ed?” Reid asks. 

“Edward would,” Hughes replies. “But Ed’s…  _ Ed _ .” He says it as if he’s at a loss for another description, and—to be fair—Ed has a habit of defying description, so Dave doesn’t really blame this one on him. “He does things that no other alchemist I’ve ever known would even  _ consider _ doing.”

“So the only alchemist we have who can tell us about the array is Mustang, and he’s currently the one affected by it. I think we have to hope he wakes up,” Reid surmises. “Either that or risk manually interfering with the array.”

Hughes is already shaking his head. “Not an option. Roy said it’s a soul link. No one should be touching that.” 

“So we’re still where we started,” Dave concludes, rubbing a hand over his face. They had flipped a coin to see whether he and Hughes or Reid would go back to the hotel first to get some rest, or if Prentiss and Seaver would. Dave and Reid lost the flip, which is why they’re still there. With all of the craziness and strangeness of this case, no one is eager to be on their own at the moment. 

There’s no warning before Mustang startles awake, shouting, “Ed!” with something akin to desperation. 

Hughes is at his side and pushes his shoulders back, trying to get him to lay back down. “Relax, Roy,” he says. “You’re in… wherever this is?”

“Pennsylvania,” Dave offers. 

“Right, you’re in Pennsylvania.” The pronunciation is strange in Hughes’s mouth, like he’s not quite sure what makes up the word. “With me and Edward’s team…”

“Maes?” Mustang stares at him, clearly still not quite awake. “You can’t be—” He reaches for something, but Hughes settles him. 

“We’ve already been over this,” he says. “I’m not a homunculus. I’m really alive. I’m really here. We’re not really sure how that happened, but Ed isn’t here, Roy. He’s not here.”

Awareness comes back into Mustang’s eyes as they move from Hughes to him and Reid. Dave can see the wheels turning as he remembers who they are, as they click into place, and he calms, rubbing a hand over his eyes. 

“Forgive me,” he says. “I just… had a strange dream.”

“You woke up asking for Ed?” Dave says. “Did you have a nightmare?”

Mustang lowers his hand and stares up at the ceiling for a long moment. “No,” he says slowly. “I don’t think I did.”

Hughes pulls his sleeve up and gets a good look at the tattoo, which is, thankfully, no longer glowing with that creepy red light. 

“This was glowing and you wouldn’t wake up,” Hughes tells him. 

Mustang raises his wrist into his line of sight, but Dave doesn’t know if he’s really seeing it or just using it to focus while he thinks. 

“It wasn’t a dream,” he says just as Reid opens his mouth. “I saw Ed, but it wasn’t a dream. At least… I don’t think it was.” 

“Tell us about the dream,” Reid prompts, leaning against the wall. Dave knows he’s standing mostly because if he doesn’t, he’s going to fall asleep where he’s sitting. “As much as you can remember. You saw Ed?”

“We were in our bed at home,” Mustang starts. “We talked about our fight… talked about…” He trails. “We knew it wasn’t a dream. He told me he’s back in our world. That Morgan and Ms. Jareau are with him.”

That perks Reid up faster than a double shot of espresso would. “Derek and JJ are okay?” he asks, a kind of desperation of his own. 

“I don’t know,” Mustang says. “Once we figured out it wasn’t a normal dream, I told him where I was, and he told me where he was and that Ms. Jareau and Morgan were with him…” He sits up, pausing as if trying to remember more, then shakes his head. “Then he was pulled away from me…” He looks at his hands as though they have betrayed him, then looks at Reid. “But if they’re with Ed, he will do anything in his power to protect them.” 

The hope dims from Reid’s eyes, but he nods, accepting what he can. 

Hughes adjusts his glasses. “Ed was dreaming too?” he asks. 

“Of course he—” Mustang cuts off, seeming to come to the realization at the same time Hughes had.

“If you were dreaming at the same time, maybe your soul link allows you to communicate across the worlds,” Reid posits. 

“If that’s the case…” Dave trails. 

“There’s an open pathway,” Mustang says. He grins, a fierce, triumphant grin, then shifts his eyes to meet Dave’s. “We have a way to communicate.” 

For the first time all day, Dave feels hope begin to take root in his chest. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little longer chapter. Hope you enjoyed. :)


End file.
